I've had three novels published, and I was working a little bit in theater in Ireland. I wrote one film script just to see what it would turn out like.

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?

Retirement is a stage where an employer discards an employee that he cannot exploit further.

Our teens are embedded in a culture driven by competition and perfectionism, where success is defined by status, performance and their appearance.

Great lives never go out; they go on.

Be thankful for the thorns and thistles, which keep you from being in love with this world, and becoming an idolater.

Dude, maybe not everyone loves 'Glee.' Me included. I watched 10 minutes and it wasn't my thing.

It hit me that the students were talking about me, not God. I was standing before a holy God and robbing Him of the glory that was rightfully His.

The arrows of malevolence ... however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me; though, whilst I am up as a mark, they will be continually aimed.

Of course I'm sure half the people there hate me and half the people like me

I’ve never had any objection to appearing depraved or villainous. But I draw the line at looking like a prize idiot.

It is a duty not only to punish, but to prevent all manner of evil.