I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid.

As a director, I also get to sit and watch actors and learn from them in a way that I don't get to do when I'm just acting.

I'm a control freak. Totally.

A dream that you don't fight for can haunt you for the rest of your life.

Ripe bananas are the mark of a good produce section. A good produce section is the mark of a superior grocery store. A superior grocery store is the mark of a good man.

Like Joseph Mitchell, I would scour the streets of New York and find little pieces of what other people think of as junk - and collect it.

The thing is, I'm a very practical filmmaker.

Sometimes we all make relationships more complicated than they necessarily have to be.

I write in the mornings. During my down time.

People wear shorts to the Broadway theater. There should be a law against that.

My partner, Beth Alexander, and I want to produce smaller films, but commercially viable films that will enable me to make the kinds of movies I want to make.

For you born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word"- Catherine Drinker Bowen

In one breath, I can say that we are God, but in another I have to say that we aren't deities.

I think you can measure how pathetic your life is by how much joy you get from learning about other people's faults and troubles.

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.

Don't take anyone's writing advice too seriously.

It is only out of ignorance that people are cruel, because they really don't think it will come back.

The walls were wet and sticky, and peach juice was dripping from the ceiling. James opened his mouth and caught some of it on his tongue. It tasted delicious.

Morality, thou deadly bane,Thy tens o' thousands thou has slain!

I hold it cowardice To rest mistrustful where a noble heart Hath pawned an open hand in sign of love.

I blame Walt Disney; well he has to find voice actors better than me somehow doesn't he?