I think it's important as a filmmaker, as any person working in the arts, that you've got to try new stuff and challenge yourself and take chances.

Comic books and graphic novels are a great medium. It's incredibly underused.

Turning 30 was when my parents both got cancer and were fighting it and beat it, but their mortality started to get to me. Everything wasn't as hunky-dory like it was.

As filmmakers, we can show where a person's mind goes, as opposed to theater, which is more to sit back and watch it.

I had some big ups and downs when I was in my 20s and the one thing I learned was, no matter how low it gets, something good will come along - something always comes out of that dark period.

I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.

I'm Godless. I've had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking

Every film had its own grammar. And it's your job as a director to basically figure out a language to tell a story.

At the end of Requiem all I wanted to do was get a DV camera and just do a small film. But then the hunger comes back.

I hope that Requiem is better than Pi. I hope that Pi is better than my student films, and I'm hoping that I'm getting better as I get older.

Also expressionistic filmmaking - making the audience feel like they were inside the characters' heads. And so we create all these different types of techniques to put the audience there.

Like the best convenience store in the world, / the mind is always open.

Checking in on what our kids are doing online isn't helicoptering, it's parenting.

Perseverance....It sometimes makes you look like a foolWorking at something that that doesn't look cool.Never mind if people mock you from their stoolWhen you are enthroned they will drool!

When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.

As long as I can stay creative and used my mind, it can be 20 hours a day. I sleep four hours, so I've got 20 hours.

The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.

I'm out for presidents to represent me (Say what?) I'm out for dead presidents to represent me.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.

It was just the best thing in my life, to come to Minnesota.

Whenever you do anything or say anything, you're opening yourself up to criticism. But that's okay.