If a movie isn't a hit right out of the gate, they drop it. Which means that the whole mainstream Hollywood product has been skewed toward violence and vulgar teen comedy.

Every great film should seem new every time you see it.

No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.

One difference between film noir and more straightforward crime pictures is that noir is more open to human flaws and likes to embed them in twisty plot lines.

To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts.

You can have a movie with hardly any cuts, or very few cuts, that is fascinating, you can't take your eyes away from it... Look at some of the long takes in Citizen Kane.

I lost faith in the Oscars the first year I was a movie critic - the year that Bonnie and Clyde didn't win.

I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.

I think we have to get beyond the idea that we have to categorize people.

What every human being should do is eat a vegetarian diet based on whole foods. Period. That's it. Animal protein is bad for you. Dairy is bad for you. Forget the ads: Milk and eggs are bad for you.

I do not fear death. I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.

The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.

It's easy to get distracted by the vaudevillian aspects of the healthcare debate.

Hills are speedwork in disguise.

People don't have a good intuitive sense of how to weigh new information in light of what they already know. They tend to overrate it.

Yes, the fans are going to get their money's worth. It's like...and everything on there is funny. It's not like random crap they put in a movie. I think it's all very funny, so.

There's a lot of madness going on out there. Artists can only be what they are, but the industry only goes with what they think people wanna hear.

It's really fun to write cuss words. Just in general.

Our problem as leaders is we do everything we know to do. That's not enough. We need to do everything God wants us to do.

I tend to overuse the word "project" only because "book" is terrifying while I'm still in the middle of something. A project can fail. I don't want a book to fail.

Just try. Try to try.