As much as I love period movies and especially more swashbuckling movies, I think that sometimes they tend to be, umm... it's hard for the audience to relate to them.

I think writing is a difficult thing and you need to suffer a little bit, even if it's just to sit there and think what an idiot you are and how anyone else could do this better than you can.

I think Cool Hand Luke was probably the first movie in which I was aware of the writing as its own separate thing. It was that speech when the guy reads Paul Newman the riot act. The speech about going in the box.

I think there's something strange about writing a script I've written many, many scripts - dozens and dozens of scripts - and every time I start one, I think to myself: 'why in the world do I think I know how to do this?'