As a performer, I could be like, "I don't want to leave that in there." But as a producer, I have to leave it in there.

Within a scantily plotted, novella-style narrative (the movie is an adaptation of a short story by Tom Bissell), single shots become story events that mere mention would spoil.

If you look at pictures of David O. Selznick , he wasn't even attractive. There's no way to portray him in a way that is glamorous, but that's one of the things that's fascinating to me about him.

I really feel like I could do anything if given enough time.

I just think the David O. Selznick story is one of the great, epic stories of Hollywood history that nobody knows. Maybe one of the reasons why nobody knows it is because he wasn't a movie star.

In terms of the way the industry operates, the studio system was such its own thing. It's so different now that it's a globalized world.

Hollywood is really weird to talk about in this monolithic sense because it's this microcosm of anywhere. It's full of a lot of people who have different intentions and different points of view.

I was trying to see if I could produce an episode - completely write it and research it and record it and edit it - all by myself in a week.

The thing that breaks my heart about [Dennis Wilson] is that he was very naïve from the beginning to the end.

That all men are equal is a proposition to which at ordinary times no sane individual has ever given his assent.

Republican presidents talk about freedom. Democratic presidents talk about equality.

We have a positive vision of the future founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that.

In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art.

Look, I'm a cancer survivor, all right? So I have great personal empathy for people who have pre-existing conditions and can't get insurance.

Katherine Kenton remains among the generation of women who feel that the most sincere form of flattery is the male erection.

It is a privilege and an honor to perform on Steinway pianos.

There is a light within each person, and it lights up the whole universe. If it does not shine, there is darkness.

[On The Hunger Games success]: "It hit on the zeitgeist of the disparity b/w the haves and have nots.

Earnings can be pliable as putty when a charlatan heads the company reporting them.