But I made him the Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security because that added an element of political espionage.

Horror films don't create fear. They release it.

I like to address the fears of my culture. I believe it's good to face the enemy, for the enemy is fear.

The first monster that an audience has to be scared of is the filmmaker. They have to feel in the presence of someone not confined by the normal rules of propriety and decency.

The first monster you have to scare the audience with is yourself.

I think the important thing about staying creative and staying sharp and original is not to look back too much.

All of us have our individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps.

As long as you keep the audience on the edge of their seats, either scare them or keep them guessing, you can put anything in there that you want.

I believe the cinema is one of our principal forms of art. It is an incredibly powerful way to tell uplifitng stories that can move people to cry with joy and inspire them to reach for the stars.

If you think it, the camera will see it.

I have a lot of fans who are people of color. I think, if nothing else, I kind of understand that sense of being on the outside looking in, culturally.

I am fashionably unimpressed with the material world. I am moved by the beauty of aspiration, and I hope that I can elevate myself to the standards I have imposed on others.

One day you may just do that!

I can't mate with you and hope to live.

When you run with the bulls, it's no use walking.

I hate rap music, which to me sounds like a bunch of angry men shouting, possibly because the person who was supposed to provide them with a melody never showed up.

That's what we all do: endlessly take the long way around.

If you don't have a burning passion for writing, how can you expect anyone else to be moved by what you write?

Theory can leave questions unanswered, but practice has to come up with something.

You have to lead, in the case of a game show, a contestant through the architecture of the show. So there's a lot of rules there, literal and implied, that you have to navigate.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is slicked o'er with the pale cast of thought