I would say L.A. is more polite than London - it's a very careful place. People talk a lot in code.

I find that after a screening, people really want to come and tell you what they feel.

I think English film is very embarrassed by patriotism, generally.

I began to think that if you're a stutterer, it's about inhabiting silence, emptiness, and nothingness.

I think directors can become overly infatuated by gilt and gold, and the word "lavish" and everything being magnificent.

A lot of dramas get a bad name commercially because they are unremittingly bleak.

I think the thumb print on the throat of many people is childhood trauma that goes unprocessed and unrecognized.

The irony of a director going to film festivals is you never get to see any of the films.

American cinema tends to express a patriotic relationship to national identity on a regular basis.

Great acting is all about being in the moment, being in the present tense.

I decided to be a filmmaker when I was 12. I had utter clarity that this would be my life.

The dreams that were buried the deepest were the hardest to get rid of.

The transformation of the world takes place in your heart.

The best protection any woman can have... is courage.

No single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. It would be a bit too easy if we could go about borrowing ready-made souls.

I don't want to steal anybody's story. I very much want to use the stories that I hear to get lost in my mind, to tell a larger story.

Activities are a real blessing to a family. They provide a way to have fun together, relieve tensions, and develop relationships on new levels with one another.

We can all control our own destiny. And I think sometimes it's a copout to say, "Well, it's this person's fault or another person's fault."

I would make myself head of the style police and we would fight fiercely against sloppiness.

Russia and Ukraine are candidates for the entry to the WTO and their dispute would be easy to understand and tackle if they are both members of this organization.

Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.