I like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.

What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?

If you were falling in love and you could go back in time and relive a day and see the banal things you did that you'd forgotten about, you'd weep, looking at that day.

I like actors who, when you see them on screen, you sense a person, not just an actor.

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.

You just never know when you're living in a golden age.

The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.

A pitfall of making a comedy with a studio-and it's also an American cultural thing-is that I get tired of being encouraged to go always for laughs.

I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.

If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.

Nothing too long imagined can be perfect in a wordly way.

Here's what I love: I love sitting at my desk, staring at the blank screen, and beginning that conversation with my imaginary friends.

What I have yet to see is a real woman choose a younger man because he spent six hours a day at the gym trying to sculpt his abs.

I can be a nice person, but if someone is messing with someone I care about, the tougher side comes out a little more.

I am willing to walk toward, and then through, whatever may be seen in the moment as being greater than myself.

I'm not tough. I'm tenacious.

Last week I told my psychiatrist, 'I keep thinking about suicide', and he told me from now I have to pay in advance.

On this global stage, Superman is someone that we can all look up to and he's almost kind of ultimately American.

I'm a fan of the Strokes, so my big fantasy was that one day I would get to sing with them.

I think underneath it all [in the Big Funk] was a little bit of a Europeanness in it.