An action film can have too much action; picture an equaliser on a stereo, with all the knobs pegged at 10. It becomes a cacophony and is, ultimately, quite boring.

You have to keep surprising your audience.

I always have humour in my action movies. I think characters that make jokes under fire are more real. It somehow helps put you in their shoes.

The only way you can stay on top is to remember to touch bottom and get back to basics.

Writing scripts is a laborious job that can be a real pain.

I love the idea of a super villain that doesn't wear a cape, that doesn't wear a super suit.

I have these guilty pleasures, these failed films that don't work at all, but I'll watch them if they're on. Like 'The Game'.

Once I started selling scripts for a great deal of money - action scripts, no less, which people tend to pooh-pooh anyway - then I started to get some backlash. Which I didn't mind.

I think it's very admirable, in a superhero movie, to be able to take a few risks.

I wrote all the time, but the idea of doing it professionally seemed like pie in the sky. Who gets paid to write? I grew up in Pittsburgh, so it wasn't really a notion that a lot of people pursue.

I wanted at one point to act, which is a weird thing for men to want to do. It's a very vain profession.

I hope to stand firm enough not to go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.

Every day is a good day when you run.

Let God's grace be the mosque, and devotion the prayer mat. Let the Quran be the good conduct.

You can measure the depth of a person's awakening by how they serve others

What's wrong with musicals now is all the gifted men who've died of AIDS-who would otherwise be here today creating great theater.

I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them!

I've actually tasted the beer; it's quite nice. It's called Samuel Smith, which is my actual name. It's good beer. Maybe that's my favorite.

Once you told yourself a story enough times, it was so easy to keep on believing it.

In whatever direction you turn, you will see God coming to meet you; nothing is void of him, he himself fills all his work.

I have yet to be in a game where luck was involved. Well-prepared players make plays. I have yet to be in a game where the most prepared team didn't win.