I've had times in my life when I really haven't been able to figure myself out.

Defining yourself by your taste is easier than defining yourself by any genuine stance on something.

As a kid, I thought of myself as a funny person who secretly wanted to be serious, but now I think maybe I'm a serious person who secretly wants to be funny.

When you find yourself on the Internet when you're supposed to be writing, you've already lost. It's even beyond procrastination when you end up on the Internet.

A film set becomes its own family anyway, and all family dynamics come out during a shoot. The trick is hiring people who know how to handle that.

We expect forty-year-olds to have grown up at some point, and to be engaged and adult and take responsibility, and doing nothing would seem to go against that.

I feel a real connection to Brooklyn, certainly, because I spent 20 years of my life there, but I don't think of myself as a Brooklyn artist any more than I think of myself as a male artist.

Peter Bogdanovich is a good friend.

It's kind of major, learning to drive. I feel like it kicked up other stuff in my life.

Being funny, in some ways, is about being connected to psychology.

I always viewed life as material for a movie.

New York is a diamond iceberg floating in river water.

For a change, lady luck seemed to be smiling on me. Then again, maybe the fickle wench was just lulling me into a false sense of security while she reached for a rock.

An hour of anxiety cannot change my circumstances, but a minute of prayer can alter everything.

I have no problems with buying tampons. I am a fairly modern man. But apparently they're not a "proper" present. "Happy birthday, mum!"

The situation in the film is like me going out to Venice Beach and talking to a homeless guy on the boardwalk, and 13 years later he's the president.

Human beings cannot endure the geological chaos they encounter under the soil of their own gardens.

It's always a help when you have worked with someone as you've got to know them a bit already.

Marketing is the art of seeing (and then creating) what might be interesting to more than our friends

Next to meditation is music, soulful music, the music that stirs and elevates our aspiring consciousness.

I wouldn't have filmed The Color Purple if the book had been a big fat novel. The reason I read it is because it is thin.