Martin Scorsese (from 2004 Warner Home Video DVD):

“It's kind of difficult to talk about how and why [Mean Streets] was made. When I think about the film and think about the time in my life having made the film and having been, in a sense, a part of the way of life that is depicted in the film it seems to, in my mind, be the final culmination of everything of what I was to do and who I am. In my mind it's not really a film. It's a declaration or a statement of who I am and how I was living; those thoughts and dilemmas and conflicts were very much a part of my life up to that point in time. They couldn't be expressed in any other way [other than] resulting in this movie."

“There is no message. It's something that came out of me organically. The only way to express it was camera and dialog and actors and color and music. In my mind it was a representation of who I was, my friends, and where I came from. The genesis was my life."