'Angel Heart' was one of my favorite films.

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.

There's a great deal of power in pretending.

great attitude make your character and sets your path.

There is no such thing as too much fun. People need to know it is O.K. to tell jokes and be happy.

Because love has been so perverted, it has in many cases come to involve a measure of hatred.

A hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow-minded misanthrope; a hammock on the ocean is the asylum for the generous distressed.

The propensity to make strong emotional bonds to particular individuals [is] a basic component of human nature

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.

I don't think we live in a particularly equal society.

If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.