I find myself in situations a lot where I have to say to someone, "This can be better," and it's hard to say that.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

To me the director’s job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.

You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

Focus your heart, mind, and soul on joy and you'll find ultimate success and fulfillment.

Love and magic have a great deal in common. they enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice.

When the hatred stops will the love begin? When there is no more greed will there then be peace?

You know, the only place in America where the millionaires and billionaires are predominantly liberal is here in Hollywood.

We are as much alive as we keep the Earth alive.

The writer is a writer because he cannot help it. It is a compulsion.

A spoken story is larger than one unheard, unsaid. In nearly all creation accounts, words or songs are how the world was created, the animals sung into existence.

I've heard tell that what you imagine sometimes comes true. -Grandpa Joe

In terms of a "career," I never have long-term plans, and certainly don't want to spend several years, say, writing a "long" novel.

The way of the parkour is to continue, not to stay here.