Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins.

When I was young I used to sit in the cinema thinking wouldn't it be great if you could have a film in which the characters were like real people instead of being like actors.

I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.

I hope I make films where you walk away . . . with work to do, arguments to have, things to worry about, things to care about. In that sense, I would regard what I do as political.

My work is about life as you and I experience it. You're either lucky or you're not lucky; either your relationship works or it doesn't.

But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives?

There's a constant drip and trickle of life that goes into one's awareness really and consciousness of things.

I discover what my film is by embarking on the journey of making it.

The way an actor is trained doesn't ultimately have much bearing on my work. I'm interested in the actor as artist.

It's an unhealthy habit to say that life is what you make of it, and if you want to be happy, then you can be happy. That's just rubbish, basically.

Given the events of even the 19th century, Zionism was inevitable. Given the events of the 20th century, Israel was inevitable.

It was muskets that won the Revolution. And don't forget it was axes, and plows that made this country.- Father Wilder

If not violently overthrown, expectation can have a power in itself, can invest a place with what literally isn't there.

When I was very young I tried selling used cars. It didn't last long. I guess that was my good luck too that I didn't show more promise at it or I might have been an automobile dealer.

We are defined and controlled by all that we have not transcended.

Despite popular belief, hitting someone with a closed fist actually hurts the hitter almost as much as the hittee.

Now I also discipline myself to do things I love to do when I don't want to do them

I've found it easier to write, to coalesce my thoughts, since having children. It brings you back to what you experienced yourself as a child, and you empathize with what your parents went through.

In my world, everything has the potential to be funny. Joyful things, painful things... It's all about how you view it and if you're able to take an objective stance on the situation.

I'm necessarily parasitic in a way. I have done well as a parasite. But I'm still a parasite.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is Metaphysics.