If I don't have to think about the commercial aspect of it, then I feel like I'm going to make better films.

It's just not enough time on set. That's my favorite time. I live for that time on set. I feel like that's when I'm stretching and flexing my muscles and learning how to direct better.

I'm drawn again and again to relationships between people who really, really want to connect and just can't get out of their own way to do it.

Flaws make us all human, and you're rooting for characters because of those flaws. It's ageless if you're interested in relationships and the way people can or can't relate to each other.

Although humor is present in every one of my films, it has always been used as a way to make the darker, heavier stuff in my stories more palatable. I never set out to make 'Humpday' a comedy.

All we really want in life is to connect to other human beings, and when you desperately want to connect physically to one specific human being and you can't? That's something I find compelling.

It feels to me like everyone is going to do their best work when they feel emotionally safe.

I had a background in theater as an actor, and then a photographer, and then as an experimental filmmaker and editor.

I feel like this is the way I was meant to interact with acting. Which is as a director, and helping, working with actors to find their way. Facilitating their performances is so satisfying for me.

There's so much great TV and I always thought it would be such a fun little sideway to make money and then not have to worry about my films making a lot of money.

I can connect with whoever I want to connect with in the world. And I can also write my own script. I don't have to follow rules. I can sort of just be unconventional.

A garden is a way of showing that you believe in tomorrow.

Disappointment is part of parenthood, Jasper. The trick is learnin' to love your kids even when they disappoint you.

We are adjusters. We empathize, we change rhythm and above all we listen to our fellow actors-if they're good actors.

I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning.

Each person's energy matters.

I like a man with faults, especially when he knows it. To err is human

I forgot how much I loved going to class, actually. But I also forgot what having school homework feels like: stressful!

On Dec. 10, 2000, I learned I was free of cancer.

One fault begets another; one crime renders another necessary.

... for some of us life always comes C.O.D.