I took two years away from making films to write a novel.

I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter.

Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?

For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.

Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line.

Never make a promise - you may have to keep it.

Initially with The Butcher Boy, there was this kid growing up in this strange, weird environment that I remember from when I was a kid. And Patrick's vision was so complete there.

Well, Company of Wolves was about that literally, about fairy tales.

My conception of it was that in a normal film you have a story with different movements that program, develop, go a little bit off the trunk, come back, and end.

If movies have to satisfy every possible quadrant before they're even made, they're dull. You only get great things when people overreach themselves.

There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?

You surround yourself with your pain or you avoid it and let it find you when you are trying to do other things

Here in the big city people spend their time thinking about work and about money; they don't give some value to friendships and it can be depressing.

By being able to write a genome and plug it into an organism, the software, if you will, changes the hardware.

God made us walking animals - pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy.

Bono is my inspiration - not only as a rock star but as a humanitarian. We aren't just put on this earth to sell records. Maybe it's because of my upbringing, but I do consider myself a moral guy.

Everyone wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change himself.

The human body has absolutely no requirement for animal flesh. Nobody has ever been found face-down 20 yards from Burger King because they couldn't get their Whopper in time.

If they only married when they fell in love, most people would die unwed.

Lord knows, if it's on the internet, it's got to be true!

A lot of people don't remember anything since 'Ice Ice Baby,' but I've got 3 records out since then and they're all successes - but not commercially.