I have a lot of nightmares.

[Screenwriting] is no more complicated than old French torture chambers, I think. It's about as simple as that.

I took some time out for life.

I had a marketing idea that everybody hated, decency is sexy.

Things get very distorted when you do a movie, weirdly so.

I love romantic comedy, but I think you have to have another idea that you're chasing along with romantic comedy.

You become so obsessed, and that's not a bad thing for a movie. Serve it with that sense that it's the whole world.

I value comedy. I value somebody who can be funny.

Kids in general make things fresh and alive and they have this great appreciation for, Holy mackerel, we're making a movie!

A lot of things just aren't true any more.

It never stops, accepting that fact is difficult. I took some time out for life.

Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.

Freedom is inextricably linked to sacrifice and compromise.

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

If God gives you a watch, are you honoring Him more by asking Him what time it is or by simply consulting the watch?

I always tell young people in particular: Do not say that nothing's changed when it comes to race in America, unless you lived through being a black man in the 1950s or '60s or '70s.

Love's an excuse to get hurt and to hurt. Do you like to hurt? I do, I do then hurt me.

I've never, ever had people being aggressive to me in public or abusing me, and actually quite a lot of men do say to me, 'You're quite good' - though they can't bear to go, 'You're great.'

Oh the thumb-sucker's thumb May look wrinkled and wet And withered, and white as the snow, But the taste of a thumb Is the sweetest taste yet (As only we thumb-sucker's know).

Even in West Germany in the beginning, people wanted a kind of socialism.

What with the reviews of critics, the sarcasms of one's friends, the reproaches of one's own taste, there's precious little peace after publishing a book.