I want to be happy; why do I do things that make me unhappy?

The secret of the creative life is to feel at ease with your own embarrassment.

Screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art.

Let's just shoot in black and white. Don't explain why. Have no reason for it. Just do it because it's interesting.

If you write interesting roles, you get interesting people to play them. If you write roles that are full of nuance and contradiction and have interesting dialog, actors are drawn to that.

One of the things that I do like about filmmaking is that you find out how to solve new problems.

Once you have a situation that is fresh, then you sort of believe in it and it becomes normal. So you do end up with protagonists that haven't been in other movies before.

Don't ever let the viewer settle in and get ahead of you.

Ultimately, it's an illusion that you can understand yourself.

Those artists who say that somehow therapy or analysis will thwart their creativity are completely misinformed. It's absolutely the opposite: it opens closed doors.

I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I've never taken a course and I've never read a book about it!

An act made in fear is not the same thing as an action taken for necessity.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

It's the only way I think I'm ever going to walk away from the game, is to go ahead and say I'm going to, and then I've got to. There's no turning back now - win, lose or draw.

I like languages. I like working on different accents. I speak English, French and Spanish. I'd love to learn more but I think, as you get older, your brain is a bit slower.

In a deal, you give and take. You compromise. Then you grab the cash and catch the next train out of town.

Don't be afraid to tell the truth. It's better to hurt someone by truth than to make them happy by lies.

I love what I do and being in front of the camera. But I never want to limit myself to just one thing and just venture out into new things.

I've always loved children. When I was working with children as a librarian, I loved being with them and working around them.

If your parents are alive, be grateful at the opportunity to earn Jannah by serving them

A lyrical, brave and complex novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off.