I'm a grinder. I'll beat you because I will not sleep.

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.

The Day of Trouble is Near

Do you think that too, " she said, "that I have slept too long in the moonlight?

We are already producing enough food to feed the world. We already have technology in place that allows us to produce more than we can find a market for.

Sometimes the truth don't rhyme, sometime the lies get millions of views, funerals for little girls is that appealing to you?

Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.

Well, nine times out of ten when you have 2 or 3 stars in a household you have an unfortunate amount of competition that's not necessarily a healthy competition.

Love isn't meant to be hidden away and life is too short for shame.

Despite the vast expanse of shoreline in this country, more than 90 percent of the seafood Americans eat is imported.

Kabul was very popular with the hippies in the Sixties and Seventies. It was very quiet and peaceful.

I'm always looking in the lighting to tell the story in a different way than it actually looks in real life because it's, for me, more contrast sometimes has to mean it's softer than normal.