I don't miss scenes at all the way that I used to miss them when I was younger making a film. It's actually quite fun to get rid of them now.

My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father's first marriage who were rock 'n' roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture.

Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.

I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will.

Acting is the hardest job in the entire world. By far. Harder than ditch digging.

It's a gamble you take, the risk of alienating an audience. But there's a theory - sometimes it's better to confuse them for five minutes than let them get ahead of you for 10 seconds.

My dad was this sort of avant-garde guy who did all kinds of weird things. He was a true original and anybody who met him never forgot him.

I am always looking for that nuance, that moment of truth, and you can't really do that fast.

My writing has a lot to do with who I am, and what my life is like, and my relationships to people.

You write who you are. But you also cheat, and youwrite what you want to be. It's embarrasing to be the guy who madethe movie, knowing you're not exactly who you want to be.

Film school is a complete con, because the information is there if you want it.

All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.

I am done looking for love where it doesn’t exist. I am done coughing up dust in attempts to drink from dry wells.

Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.

When I wrote nonfiction, my best work was the really personal stuff.

You like the party?" "Is it in honor of anything?" "My cat's birthday." "Oh." She glanced around. "Where's your cat?" "I dont know. He ran away." -Magnus & Clary, pg.221-

When you got a guy that has purpose, now your in a dog fight.

The most reasonable man always manages, when he pulls the trigger, to become a dispenser of justice.

So it was a thing that my mother always taught me to go for your goals and never give up no matter what they are, and I started believing that later on in life.

Growing up in the streets of Bed-Stuy, it was hard, yo.

Society gives legitimacy and society can take it away.