“So what. What are you going to do? Jump off the Empire State Building?” It’s all still the same. The last day of your life is still going to be a day.”

Even if you’re a poet sitting in your room writing a poem, you’re still in the world

My grandfather lived to be 96 years old. He was born in a town outside of Salerno in Southern Italy.

My existence is about making movies, so I’ve just got to rock and roll with the punches.

But I’m never gonna get to a point in my life where what it costs to shoot a movie is going to determine what it is.

My life is proof that I don’t need you to do what I do. If there’s no one to see it, I’ll watch it.

Making money is not gonna change anything about what I am, except I won’t answer the door.

The more you get into any religion, it becomes the same. It really becomes how you treat other people and how you get outside yourself.

Certain actors wanna get paid, they think working in a low-budget movie is being ripped off. But for others it’s like, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’

Mulberry Street was the beating heart of the Italian-American experience, but you don’t find those gangsters now. I live with a bunch of yuppies and models.

I don’t care if I get $50 million to do a film.

He came to New York when he was 20. He lived in the States from age 20 to 96, but he brought his culture with him

I don’t know what DVD commentaries are about. I’d like to strangle the person who came up with that concept.

The limits of my imagination is the only thing that’s gonna stop me.

He brought his food with him, he brought his language with him, he never spoke a word of English.

Which filmmaking is completely done under in many circumstances. You’re under constant crisis, making a movie

A lifetime isn’t long enough to learn how to make films.

Build your own gimmick and hype, and that’ll make you a better powerlifter. Not just doin’ it like James does it, cause if you try to fly off the building like superman you’ll be out there in the middle of the street.

When I was working in my first job engineering construction, what I liked the most was working with architects and making buildings that had this creative side coming from the architect and that were making them a big success.

I am building a stairway to the stars. I have the authority to take the whole of mankind up there with me. That is why I write.

We have not come to compete with one another. We have come to complete one another.

Concepts differentiate architecture from mere building…A bicycle shed with a concept is architecture; a cathedral without one is just a building.

So that buildings and structures you normally pass without a glance suddenly become arresting, even beautiful? Well, they seem to have that light in Australia nearly all the time.

I’ve had a lot of experience building things, organizing things, a national scholarship program.

I know that New York is big, there are huge buildings, but in fact, it’s quite small and contained.