All human interaction, you can break it down to incentives. All relationships, at some level, are transactional. They're fascinated with incentives.

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.

Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world's work, and the power to appreciate life.

In every sufferings you've encountered, there will be an opportunity to settle things in a right place. If that comes, grab it. Learn to forgive.

He who is desireless, self-reliant, independent and free of bonds functions like a dead leaf blown about by the wind of causality .

You may have married her, but she is mine. Do you think I shall let you take her? She may be ten times your wife, but, by God, you shall never have her.

Something is wanting, and something must be done, or we shall be involved in all the horror of failure, and civil war without a prospect of its termination.

I think once you start traveling, you don’t stop

On the web, you are what you publish.

My first film role was a reporter. It's funny, because my father was a news reporter. I always thought there was something strange about that.

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.

Never forgive at the ballot box!