“If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of.”

There is something that might be called cinematic beauty. It can only be expressed in a film, and it must be present for that film to be a moving work.

One of techniques of modern art is simplification, and that I must therefore simplify this film.

It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit.

I believe that it is this quality that draws people to come and see a film, and that it is the hope of attaining this quality that inspires the filmmaker to make his film in the first place.

If you want to be a great director, be a great screenwriter.

I am not a special person, I am not especially strong; I am not especially gifted.

I believe this is what the medieval Noh playwright and theorist Zeami meant by ‘watching with a detached gaze.’

During the shooting of a scene the director’s eye has to catch even the minutest detail. But this does not mean glaring concentratedly at the set.

I have no idea who the characters are, later, their personalities take over anything I might want to do.

Movie directors, or should I say people who create things, are very greedy and they can never be satisfied… That’s why they can keep on working.

For me, filmmaking combines everything. That’s the reason I’ve made cinema my life’s work. In films, painting and literature, theatre and music come together. But a film is still a film.

If I were to write anything at all, it would turn out to be nothing but talk about movies. In other words, take ‘myself,’ subtract ‘movies,’ and the result is ‘zero.’

I suppose all of my films have a common theme. If I think about it, though, the only theme I can think of is really a question: Why can’t people be happier together?

When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this, which I take and work with.

When it is very well expressed, one experiences a particularly deep emotion while watching that film.

My films come from my need to say a particular thing at a particular time. The beginning of any film for me is this need to express something.

Human nature is to blame for everything, innit? We’re just a disease on this planet.

In Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn’t tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.

Everything I hear influences me. I can’t tell you all my influences as a musician.

Everything I have done or attempted to do for Scotland has always been for her benefit, never my own and I defy anyone to prove otherwise.

If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.

I’m not the most attractive fella. I’m not a Billy Dee Williams. Personality is everything.

Hollywood has a way of making everything seem like an overnight success.

I guess I did have my young love. I did everything to impress her. Everything possible. It was just ridiculous.