Michael Cimino

Every good war film, if you want to use that phrase - I don't think it's a good phrase, but if you want to use that phrase - every good film, a first-rate film about war, is an anti-war movie.

There's nothing good that comes out of war. It's simply hell on earth, and people survive, and people don't.

'Leaving Las Vegas' is a relationship; 'Dead Man Walking' is a relationship, and they're very contained movies. They're compressed and not in wide open spaces all over the place.

If you can't stop somebody from working and making movies that you hate, what's the next best thing? Destroy them personally.

I don't make movies to make a point; I make movies to tell stories about people.

I'm a frustrated would-be architect who stumbled into the would-be business of making movies.

Friendship and sentiment and the giving of one's words are very important.

Family politics are worse than world politics. That's all I can say. You don't get to choose your family; you get to choose your friends. Your family is imposed upon you.

I felt the need to unlearn my formal education.

I was a child prodigy. Like Michelangelo, who could draw a perfect circle at age five. I was extremely gifted. I could paint a perfect portrait of someone at age five.