I suppose I could try to be some avant-garde artist if I wanted to, but that doesn't interest me as much.

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.

O my love! In this loveless world, you are my world.

It's fair to say average Americans think that the average Afghan doesn't want American troops in their country.

A very little key will open a very heavy door.

I dream of continuing to dream.

My home is my castle, and I spend a lot of time nurturing it, redecorating - moving this and adjusting that, adding flowers and candles.

Don't count out other amazing programming like Frontline. You will still find more hours of in-depth news programming, investigative journalism and analysis on PBS than on any other outlet.

You aren't ever going to be anything in this world unless you do what you want to do, when you want to do it--don't plan anything, just go out and do it.

Juan Fangio was the great man of racing, whilst Stirling Moss was the epitome of a racing driver.

I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood.

I excavate history. I look at lives buried under too much silence. Periods of time, like slavery, have to be revisited, reimagined, so we can move through them.