A day doesn't go by when I don't get a compliment on L.A. Confidential, for example.

I had a checkered early career, for sure, with a lot of very unhappy experiences where pictures got taken away, re-cut, re-titled... all the nightmares one hears about.

What you care about [movie] is whether it's moving you, or whether you're caught up in it.

Hollywood, of course, is the city of illusion.

You can dress it up, but it comes down to the fact that a movie is only as good as its script.

Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.

Self-awareness and self-esteem. Those aren't female issues, those are human issues.

Put simply, there are many people who want to make movies and very few opportunities for them to do it.

I grew up as a reader as well as a movie-lover, so many of the novelists I admired - and so many of the great filmmakers I loved - were self-taught.

Consequently, it's so gratifying to then make a picture that's successful and gives you leverage to have better circumstances than you've ever had, before the next time out.

Consequently, their school [film-school ] was the school of life, and it was very much reflected in their work.

The gods are real crazy when it comes to prayers. They listen to some sometimes and do not listen to some sometimes. But the whole world prays, nonetheless-All the time

Living simply means concentrating on what's important in light of eternity. And not taking the rest of life too seriously.

The showrunner relationship in television is what the director relationship in film, there's really no more important relationship.

Britain is producing some of the worst films in the world. Our film industry is desperate to be part of America, and we just churn out flaccid imitations of bad films over there.

As often happened, Charmain began to despair of getting her mother to understand. She's not stupid, she just never lets her mind out, she thought.

It's great to be recognized for work, and the work is great, but once you have the awards, it becomes less important. It just gives you the ability to do better work, in my opinion.

You can eliminate, for example, a Brazil nut gene if you know that it will create an allergenic effect.

Well-gotten wealth may lose itself, but the ill-gotten loses its master also.

Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life

I didn't go out looking for fights as a kid, but if it was necessary, I'd fight. Fighting was a daily thing where we lived.