I like films that continue to spin your head in all sorts of different directions after you've seen them.

I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world's still there. (Leonard Shelby, Memento)

I always thought the joy of reading a book is not knowing what happens next. (Leonard Shelby, Memento)

You're never going to learn something as profoundly as when it's purely out of curiosity

A camera is a camera, a shot is a shot, how you tell the story is the main thing.

You musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.

One of the things you do as a writer and as a filmmaker is grasp for resonant symbols and imagery without necessarily fully understanding it yourself.

Every film should have its own world, a logic and feel to it that expands beyond the exact image that the audience is seeing.

Every great story deserves a great ending

I've always believed that if you want to really try and make a great film, not a good film, but a great film, you have to take a lot of risks.

I've been fascinated by dreams my whole life, since I was a kid, and I think the relationship between movies and dreams is something that's always interested me.

The world won't get more or less terrible if we're indoors somewhere with a mug of hot chocolate.

Even if we can't be happy we must always be cheerful.

Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change.

It is difficult to preach, this morality of mediocrity! It may never admit what it is and what it wants! It must speak about restraint and worth and duty and love of one's neighbor.

I sang in a rock band when I was training as a lawyer. You know, not professional, we just did it for fun. We just did gigs all over Edinburgh and some in Glasgow and some at festivals.

Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint!

I don't know whether I prefer Astroturf to grass. I never smoked Astroturf.

Look at the world and see what's there. It's very beautiful. It's a very exciting but in some ways treacherous world, and all this goes into the writing.

They who say that we should love our fellow-citizens but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever.

And not to serve for a table-talk.