As for critics, one mediocre writer is more valuable than ten good critics. They are like haughty, barren spinsters lodged in a maternity ward.

A good reputation is more valuable than money.

I think of myself more as a filmmaker or as a film person than as strictly just a writer. I don't come out of playwriting or anything like that.

A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender.

I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself.

The Sistine Chapel is an extraordinary work of education - it lays out all the early books of the Bible.