I don't suppose God laughs at the people who think He doesn't exist. He's above jokes. But the devil isn't. That's one of his most endearing qualities.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard even to vomiting in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role.

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.

Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.

The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can't afford a yes man.

No person can walk all alone because to walk all alone one must have no memories at all from the past!

Who grins in official circumstances?

Everyone thinks they can write a play you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.

Legend has it that when God created me, he gave me a big distinctive voice, a lot of boldness and no heart.

I'm a firm believer in absolute honesty.

It's not my job to critique the writing. I'm there to serve it. I had to figure out a way to make it work.

Many things between Heaven and Earth fill me with wonder; but of all of these, the least wondrous to me are the wonders of Religion.

I was still making movies so it wasn't as if I were working in a bar, but they were independent films that couldn't find distributors.

I feel like this is the way I was meant to interact with acting. Which is as a director, and helping, working with actors to find their way. Facilitating their performances is so satisfying for me.

I grew up as a Catholic, and there was so much that was beautiful there, and also so much that was troubling. The whole patriarchal thing, the whole male-dominated approach, really bothered me.