"A meteor hits planet Earth" - that's a story idea but that doesn't give me any indication of what the character is.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

To me the director’s job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.

You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

I'm a good enough person to forgive you, and you should be a good enough person to not do it again.

Pseudo idealism: apparent charitable behaviour that on scrutiny is revealed as selfish, because the giver is engaging in it only so that he or she can feel good about him or herself

I love a lot of reggae, but Ive never had the opportunity to play with any reggae guys.

Being on the road is kind of lonely.

[Mike] Pence has been great.

Reveal art; conceal the artist.

There is so much trouble in coming into the world, and so much more, as well as meanness, in going out of it, that it is hardly worth while to be here at all.

The aim of the poet, or other artist, is first to make something; and it's impossible to make something out of words and not communicate

I have the best divorce of anyone I've heard of.

I guess, you make a big studio film, you spend a lot of money on it and you hope people go see it. It's really risky.