I try to get to know the actors as much as I can. I feel like I'm friends with them for starters and for a week or two, we rehearse when they're getting the costumes together.

Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.

I used to take photographs just to remember people.

For all the boredom the straight life brings, it's not too bad.

I was once a shameless, full-time dope fiend.

Now the music industry is sort of like a Craigslist venture, right? Where you're making your own records and selling them online.

I'm normally drawn to something I haven't done and seen before.

The area of teenage life is not necessarily rarefied; we've all gone through that period. It's not as rarefied as a western or a space adventure or a gangster film, but it has its own dynamic.

Sometimes getting upset with yourself is necessary when you face the truth.

Modern-day cinema takes the form of a sermon. You don't get to think, you only get to receive information.

I have my ideas of what a good documentary is, but drama is a different animal because you're arranging everything.

The world is changeable, and its ability to change is so fragile that a single person can be responsible for it.

Change comes with both fear and some pain. Those two ingredients create mistrust, misunderstanding and misinformation. Such is the process of democracy.

A perfect example of the power of prayer is when a blizzard closes the schools on the day of a big exam.

You gotta know someone cares about you, or you just give up.

How in hell can you handle love without turning your life upside down? That's what love does, it changes everything.

When the people you've already worked with are very talented and you know what they can do, if you think of a character that happens to be perfect for them, then you make it happen.

For me, comfort is paramount.

Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them.

It's like this, dear boy, the one in front is blind and the kind one behind is pushing him.

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.