My Reputation Has Grown Slowly.

I Think The Big Mistake In Schools Is Trying To Teach Children Anything, And By Using Fear As The Basic Motivation. Fear Of Getting Failing Grades, Fear Of Not Staying With Your Class, Etc. Interest Can Produce Learning On A Scale Compared To Fear As A Nuclear Explosion To A Firecracker.

If Man Merely Sat Back And Thought About His Impending Termination, And His Terrifying Insignificance And Aloneness In The Cosmos, He Would Surely Go Mad, Or Succumb To A Numbing Sense Of Futility. Why, He Might Ask Himself, Should He Bother To Write A Great Symphony, Or Strive To Make A Living, Or Even To Love Another, When He Is No More Than A Momentary Microbe On A Dust Mote Whirling Through The Unimaginable Immensity Of Space?

The Very Meaninglessness Of Life Forces Man To Create His Own Meaning.

Some People Demand A Five-line Capsule Summary. Something You'd Read In A Magazine. They Want You To Say, 'this Is The Story Of The Duality Of Man And The Duplicity Of Governments.' I Hear People Try To Do It -- Give The Five-line Summary -- But If A Film Has Any Substance Or Subtlety, Whatever You Say Is Never Complete, It's Usually Wrong, And It's Necessarily Simplistic: Truth Is Too Multifaceted To Be Contained In A Five-line Summary. If The Work Is Good, What You Say About It Is Usually Irrelevant.

The Very Meaninglessness Of Life Forces Man To Create His Own Meaning. If It Can Be Written Or Thought, It Can Be Filmed.