Also expressionistic filmmaking - making the audience feel like they were inside the characters' heads. And so we create all these different types of techniques to put the audience there.

Comic books and graphic novels are a great medium. It's incredibly underused.

Turning 30 was when my parents both got cancer and were fighting it and beat it, but their mortality started to get to me. Everything wasn't as hunky-dory like it was.

As filmmakers, we can show where a person's mind goes, as opposed to theater, which is more to sit back and watch it.

I had some big ups and downs when I was in my 20s and the one thing I learned was, no matter how low it gets, something good will come along - something always comes out of that dark period.

I think it's important as a filmmaker, as any person working in the arts, that you've got to try new stuff and challenge yourself and take chances.

I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.

I'm Godless. I've had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking

Every film had its own grammar. And it's your job as a director to basically figure out a language to tell a story.

At the end of Requiem all I wanted to do was get a DV camera and just do a small film. But then the hunger comes back.

I hope that Requiem is better than Pi. I hope that Pi is better than my student films, and I'm hoping that I'm getting better as I get older.

What you dream of, you will possess.

For a knowledge of intimacy, localization in the spaces of our intimacy is more urgent than determination of dates.

I don't want women to hold themselves back. I think there are too many women who are self-conscious about the way they look - the way they see themselves in the mirror.

We are the ghosts of the singing furies .

I still believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and true love. Don't even try to tell me different.

Whatever you do, whatever you're working with, whether it's manual work or talking to people or buying or selling, every little thing encompasses the power and simplicity of presence.

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.

Though I'm a congresswoman by title, a politician I've never been.

On Sunday, something washed up on shore.

Beauty is sincerity.There are so many different ways someone can be beautiful.