A camera is a camera, a shot is a shot, how you tell the story is the main thing.

I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world's still there. (Leonard Shelby, Memento)

I always thought the joy of reading a book is not knowing what happens next. (Leonard Shelby, Memento)

You're never going to learn something as profoundly as when it's purely out of curiosity

I like films that continue to spin your head in all sorts of different directions after you've seen them.

You musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.

One of the things you do as a writer and as a filmmaker is grasp for resonant symbols and imagery without necessarily fully understanding it yourself.

Every film should have its own world, a logic and feel to it that expands beyond the exact image that the audience is seeing.

Every great story deserves a great ending

I've always believed that if you want to really try and make a great film, not a good film, but a great film, you have to take a lot of risks.

I've been fascinated by dreams my whole life, since I was a kid, and I think the relationship between movies and dreams is something that's always interested me.

Everything precious comes out of solitude.

A good director creates an environment, which gives the actor the encouragement to fly.

Too chaste an adolescence makes for a dissolute old age. It is doubtless easier to give up something one has known than something one imagines.

Try to decide how good your hand is at a given moment. Nothing else matters. Nothing.

Butler,” he called, his voice thin and childlike in the wind. “Yes, Artemis, what?” “If something goes wrong, wait for me. No matter how it looks, I will return. I will bring them all back.

I endeavored to renounce society, that I might avoid temptation. But it was a poor religion; so far as it prevailed, only tended to make me gloomy, stupid, unsociable, and useless.

A seventeenth-century painting can be "modern" because the living eye finds it fresh and new. A "modern" painting can be outdated because it was a product of the moment and not of time.

because everybody lies. It's part of living in society .

Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning. Dream is also just a word until you decide to fight for it with all your enthusiasm and commitment

I think I would want to make toys. Maybe it's that thing about trying to be a kid forever.