Here [in Wonder Boys] I had this group of characters where you didn't know which were the important ones or what direction they were heading.

I had a checkered early career, for sure, with a lot of very unhappy experiences where pictures got taken away, re-cut, re-titled... all the nightmares one hears about.

What you care about [movie] is whether it's moving you, or whether you're caught up in it.

Hollywood, of course, is the city of illusion.

You can dress it up, but it comes down to the fact that a movie is only as good as its script.

Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.

Self-awareness and self-esteem. Those aren't female issues, those are human issues.

Put simply, there are many people who want to make movies and very few opportunities for them to do it.

I grew up as a reader as well as a movie-lover, so many of the novelists I admired - and so many of the great filmmakers I loved - were self-taught.

Consequently, it's so gratifying to then make a picture that's successful and gives you leverage to have better circumstances than you've ever had, before the next time out.

Consequently, their school [film-school ] was the school of life, and it was very much reflected in their work.

Happiness in something you need to search for, It comes from inside. You can pull it out from inside by satisfaction and acceptance.

I didn't really care if I had a coach that much, me personally, because I was brought up to think for myself.

I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens.

But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

The most important job of an editor is simplify, simplify simplify, and that usually means omitting things.

What you cannot escape, you must fight; what you cannot fight, you must endure.

I am what I am and cannot be otherwise because of the shadows.

There were neighbors that I played with and did all the things that children do. I did mow the lawn. I did help with various things that needed to be done to occupy my time.

Man in society is like a flow'r, Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone His faculties expanded in full bloom Shine out, there only reach their proper use.

My time inside there was very short compared to the amount of time it took to take on and take off this suit and to test me for how much radioactivity I have.