All my favorite movies are somebody else's least favorite movie.

Belgrade has kind of a Dublinesque, dear-dirty charm.

My favorite sci-fi always uses its hook to amplify some bigger theme or idea - some emotional thrust.

Much of directing [a movie] is not directing but just listening and being present in the moment and just keeping your eyes open.

If you make something interesting, inevitably not everybody is going to like it.

You go from these high hopes when you're writing to just a desperate want of not making a complete fool of yourself by the end of it.

You come out of each movie just thinking, "God, if we can fool them into letting us make just one more, we can get it right."

Writing sucks. I think it's terrible. Writing is not fun, and don't trust anyone who claims to enjoy it. Liars!

Writing in a lot of ways feels more like excavation than construction. It feels like you're uncovering this thing bit by bit, discovering what it is, instead of constructing it upwards.

Showing your movie to an audience... it's like your kid doing a piano recital. 'Just let it not fail. Please.

If I spend a year and a half writing a script, the first year will be outlining in notebooks. It's just the way I work, definitely not necessarily the best way.

Our fantasies are our realities in an excuse-free world.

I committed my life to Christ, and that faith has been most important to me ever since.

We didn't say that 80% [of terrorists], for example, or the majority or the vast majority, are foreigners. We said the vast majority are Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda offshoot organizations in this region.

The models for me were more the folk-rock singers of the '60s and '70s.

I think that the world ended a long time ago and no one realizes it. We're in a dream somewhere in a vortex of energy that just hasn't realized its nonexistence yet.

I am happy even before I have a reason.

Well, fluffy shirts are, by definition, very comfortable.

In my younger days, I was arrogant - jail helped me to get rid of it. I did nothing but make enemies because of my arrogance.

When you start at catering college, nobody prepares you for a book tour or public speaking.

Maintain a spirit of peace and you will save a thousand souls.