"Sex. What Fun." to the students of Atlantic Theater School "If you shout in the theater, people think you've gone a bit mad. But if you raise your voice on a film set, people just work a bit harder." "My process is slow and I enjoy it too much to rush. And I like to return to the theater between films. But after not doing any movies for a few years, perhaps I might do two in two years." Regarding his commitment to directing Jarhead without a personal soldiering background: "This is new territory to me, but I hadn't spent two days in American suburbia when I directed American Beauty. I only knew the script had an unusual and original voice and it was a challenge I wanted to take on. Jarhead is equal parts black humor, honesty, rage, lyricism, profanity and the mixture of machismo jarhead culture. With the exception of Three Kings this is a war that has been overlooked but which has a burning relevance to what is happening right now in the Middle East." "I feel very undeserving. I feel the award is a bank loan, which I'll take out and pay back by the end of 20 years, and by then I'll feel more deserving." - On receiving his Lifetime Achievement award from the Directors Guild of Great Britain. "I feel they've understood in Europe. In America, it's like talking about a different movie.Fundamentally, Jarhead disobeys all the laws of American movies, and not just the political laws of American movies right now which demand on some level to tell us which side they're on. In Europe, there's a sense this film comes from the tradition of absurdist war movies about the futility of conflict." Regarding the different reactions of Europeans and Americans to his film, "Jarhead" (2005): "I feel they've understood in Europe. In America, it's like talking about a different movie. Fundamentally, Jarhead disobeys all the laws of American movies, and not just the political laws of American movies right now which demand on some level to tell us which side they're on. In Europe, there's a sense this film comes from the tradition of absurdist war movies about the futility of conflict. It has more in common with Beckett, Sartre and Banuel than it does with Oliver Stone. In America, they assumed I was trying to make an Oliver Stone movie and that I'd failed."