Drama is life with the dull bits left out. There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. I believe in putting the horror in the minds of the audience, and not necessarily on the screen. The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

If I weren’t a director, I would want to be a film composer.

I have never seen it (Jaws 4) but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built and it is terrific.

The great thing about an independent film is that you’re too busy working, and you’re too busy hoping to God to get it done.

I am not a political man and I have no political convictions. I am an individual and a believer in liberty. That is all the politics I have. On the other hand I am not a super-patriot. Super-patriotism leads to Hitlerism – and we’ve had our lesson there. I don’t want to create a revolution – I just want to create a few more films.

There’s things that I can do as an actor that I couldn’t do in any other form of life and I’ve got a strange personality. But film requires strange people, so I’ve got a nice comfy home.