“If you believe, you believe; if you're faithful, you're faithful. I don't care what your religion is. The same if you're agnostic. That should be accepted, too.”
“In film, it's very important to not allow yourself to get sentimental, which, being British, I try to avoid. People sometimes regard sentimentality as emotion. It is not. Sentimentality is unearned emotion.”
“One of the problems with science fiction, which is probably one of the reasons why I haven't done one for many, many years, is the fact that everything is used up. Every type of spacesuit is used up, every type of spacecraft is vaguely familiar, the corridors are similar, and the planets are similar.”
“Technology will need to make many more huge leaps before one can ever view films with the level of picture and sound quality many film lovers demand without having to slide a disc into a player, especially with the technical requirements of today's 3D movies.”
“The time it would take me to write a screenplay it would take me the time to make two films. I would rather make the movies, and I'm a better moviemaker than I would be writer.”
“When you're at a certain point in your time - age, that is, when you're older - you start to realize that, actually, what you leave behind you does count, and so you start to become fundamentally aware of your own destiny, which sounds very grand. It's not grand at all, actually.”
“I get so used to working with writers that my prime occupation is development.”
“It's everything and I always make decisions about the cast.”
“'Alien' is a landmark. One of the really good science-fiction films.”
“Any period is fascinating: the more ancient, the better.”