Burt Lancaster was largely responsible for me becoming a director.

The essence to me of all good drama is argument.

People ask me over and over how is it that I work with stars. How do you work with Barbra Streisand, with Paul Newman, with Al Pacino, with Sally Field, Jane Fonda, you work with all these people. Isn't this a problem? And it isn't a problem at all. It's terrific. It's great fun. And I don't know what the answer is.

For reasons which I can't logically explain, in all of the films I've done, I've ended up doing love stories of one kind or another, and it seems to me that love stories are extremely dependent on the obstacles you can place between the lovers. There is no love story without it.

For me, there was never an end game for becoming a director.

At some point during the filmmaking process, you lose objectivity, and you need the eyes of someone who understands the process and has been in the trenches.