I think what makes compelling fiction or cinema is when you're basically taking the most intense moments of experience and you're creating a song or a narrative out of it.

The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That's how I feel now, no matter what you're doing.

Anything you could ever want or be you already have and are.

The holy trifecta of directing and filmmaking is character emotion, camera movement and music. When you hit those three, that's magical. That's what I'm trying to do.

I got put on jury duty, which is where I learned how to write.

There's nothing better than an actor who is really, really hungry to show everything they've got.

You know, veterans come home and they may not be bipolar, but after they've been through a war with PTSD or a head injury, their families have a handful when they come home.

That's just how I see things. I think things that are the most dramatic or tragic can also look the most ridiculous and funny. That's part of being human.

The idea that anyone would think their religious ideas make them morally superior is just preposterous.

The gift of life is the gift to suffer sometimes and to embrace it, heartbreak and all.

What do we have in life, really? If we're lucky we get to a certain age, and we have each other. We have the food we like. We have our crazy little rituals. And we have each other.

What would happen if you gave yourself permission to do somethingyou’ve never done before? There’s only one way to find out.

So much can be done, even when little is said.So little can be done, even when much is spoken.

He gave me a small, secretive smile, a smile that said he knew many things but couldn’t share them all at once.

The only thing I can ever do is make a film that I can respond to. I could not make a romantic comedy for college girls. I wouldn't know how that works.

The people only understand what they can feel; the only orators that can affect them are those who move them.

Naturally, no writer who's any good at all would sit down and put a sheet of paper in a typewriter and start typing a play unless he knew what he was writing about.

People are just waiting around to get certified.

A lot of times I feel like people stick around in a relationship because they feel a primal need to be with that person for whatever reason.

The people who carried the burden, who marked in strange field in search of an answer, and ended their journeys an unwilling hero.

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed organization. It is valuable to the United States, and the United States is invaluable to it. We need to reform it.