I look at other filmmakers and see skills in them that I wish I had but I know that I don't. I feel like I have to work really hard to keep myself afloat, doing what I do. But I find it pleasurable.

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.

Why is the measure of love loss?

I'm a lover not a fighter. But when I have to fight, I fight to win. There cannot be another outcome.

I’ve been chasing you since before I knew what chasing a girl meant.

We're going to be OK because of the American people. They have more grit, determination and courage than you can imagine.

I hope I'm going to act for the rest of my life. What scares me is that if I get a big head, my mum said she would take me out of the business instantly - and if you knew my mum, she would do it!

My goal was to play in the NHL, because that is the best hockey in the world.

Photography has saved my life, over and over again.

Science explains the world, but only Art can reconcile us to it.

I must be gone and live, or stay and die.