Michael Cimino

Working-class, blue-collar guys who volunteered for Vietnam were ascribed certain political beliefs. It's time that this was redressed. It had nothing to do with politics. Once these men got to Vietnam, it was a matter of survival.

I feel very, very upset that, when it came time for me to get an Academy Award, that I didn't especially thank Clint Eastwood.

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.

It's one of the things that movies do offer you, despite all of their hardships - they offer you moments of transcendence.

A film maker's energy and creativity don't have to end when he turns over his film.

I've published a couple of short novels in France that I didn't want to publish in English because I loved the characters too much to subject them to American critics who were not exactly favorable toward my work.

On a movie, you often work fourteen-, sixteen-hour days, six days a week, for six months. It is so easy to let up because of fatigue.

I have no personal life.

I've got a room full of scripts. They go to the ceiling. I can't even hardly walk into it anymore. Most are original, and there are some adaptations like 'Man's Fate.'