I like movies about women behaving badly, because women behave badly just like men, and we're not always adorable and cute about it.

We would go down to Riverside, California, which is very poor now, but that's where my grandfather grew up. He grew up during the Depression in Riverside.

I didn't know the city at all, but I was so happy to be in New York I cried. I was so excited.

You keep learning how to let go and to live the life that you actually have, as opposed to the life you thought you were going to have.

I've never had a plan, I've always done things from instinct.

I like things that look like mistakes.

Let your characters talk to each other and do things. Spend time with them - they'll tell you who they are and what they're up to.

I’m not saying that everyone needs to be celibate, but you don’t need a romance to complete a story about a woman

I feel like most people aren't either/or, they're both/and. You're both magnanimous and petty. You're both kind and cruel. You're never just one thing.

I had dreams, but I didn't have the sense that they would necessarily work out. They seemed very far-fetched.

You feel sadness for time passing. New York is a city that keeps reinventing itself, and I love it so much.

All your failures are intrigues of the devil

It’s hard to see what’s good, what’s right, when you’re in the middle of it

Just take them rascals [rapists, killers, child abusers] out in the swamp / Put 'em on their knees and tie 'em to a stump / Let the rattlers and the bugs and the alligators do the rest.

I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is madness - the madness of a memory which busies itself among forbidden things.

I was never into the popular school or clique or anything. Then I started doing movies when I was in high school, so then I got popular. Then the girls paid attention to you who didn't before.

People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either being made.

You're not poor because you don't have money. You're poor if you don't have a dream.

When I came into the job, funding for the humanities at the federal level was being drastically cut. This was the high tide of the new Republican Congress.

After all, the commonplaces are the great poetic truths.

I hate the moment when suddenly my anger turns into tears