I think a lot of people think that my parents' deaths is why I write such sad songs but that's not true. Those songs may just be the woman I am.

There is no such thing as death. In nature nothing dies. From each sad remnant of decay some forms of life arise so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.

It more or less has the shape of a love song but 'Crescent Moon' reflects more my longing for an ancient romantic context that includes wild animals fire danger of death stellar navigation and seasonal intuition.

It is the sincerest thing I have written caught by the drama of a soul struggling in the contrary toils of love and religion - death brought them into harmony.

There's been a slow death in a way. On the positive side there are films getting into the Academy Awards that wouldn't have but on the negative side financiers are now dominant and making all the decisions. I can't count the ways a director's vision is compromised.

But when I first got cancer after the initial shock and the fear and paranoia and crying and all that goes with cancer - that word means to most people ultimate death - I decided to see what I could do to take that negative and use it in a positive way.

People meet in bars after work all over the world and talk about the great problems of life and death and the world and politics and they don't take themselves seriously. They can do nothing else except chat about these things in bars after work.

The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century all natural disasters and all automobile accidents combined.

Many cats are the death of the mouse.

When you're on your deathbed you probably aren't counting the movies you've made.

I love Westerns and I remember as a kid climbing up on the couch and make it into a saddle and shoot guns and fall off. I would lay there after my death and my mom would tell me to eat lunch and I'd say 'I'm still dead Mom!' I was Method even then.

My mom was a Democrat and I was scared to death that she was gonna blow it. First I was going to hell with Monroe and now to Republican hell with Nixon.

Death can't be so bad if mom went through it. It makes it easier for the child to follow.

My mother smokes me out. We'll get these long periods of me thinking I'm too busy to call her up or e-mail her and she'll send me something. My mom's a real whiner. I love her to death but she always sends me these 'woe is me' things. I think she might be Jewish. I'm not sure. She's Baptist-Jewish which is a double whammy.

My mom is this liberal feminist Mormon powerhouse. I just love her to death.

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime.

Prior to penicillin and medical research death was an everyday occurrence. It was intimate.