Once you have a situation that is fresh, then you sort of believe in it and it becomes normal. So you do end up with protagonists that haven’t been in other movies before.

The only economic paradigm that movies have ever known is capitalism. There were no church sponsors or state patronage. The idea was that if you’d pay to see it, we’ll make it for you.

Those artists who say that somehow therapy or analysis will thwart their creativity are completely misinformed. It’s absolutely the opposite: it opens closed doors.

Because many of the films I’ve made have had an intellectualedge, it’s harder for me to lie. It’s harder for me to go to peoplewith money and say I don’t care about art, all I care about iscommerce; all I really want to do is make money.

You can’t take contradiction away. Part of the fun of it is that the contradiction never really quite goes away.

This distinction between form and experience is not pedantic, but fundamental: a form can express the Transcendent, an experience cannot. A form can express the common ground in which all things share. An experience can only express one man’s reaction to that common ground.

You think it’s a blessing to know what God wants?

I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I’ve never taken a course and I’ve never read a book about it!

As screenwriters, we struggle with our own success. We have wallpapered our world and now we can’t get anyone to notice the picture we just hung.

Ultimately, it’s an illusion that you can understand yourself.