If you have a child who is seven feet tall, you don't cut off his head or his legs. You buy him a bigger bed and hope he plays basketball.

Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.

I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before.

[The Player is] not a truthful indictment of Hollywood. It's much uglier than I portrayed it, but nobody would've been interested if I'd shown just how sadistic, cruel and self-orientated it is.

Your own ego is the only trap that I think you can fall into.

I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.

Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes.

I don't think screenplay writing is the same as writing - I mean, I think it's blueprinting.

All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive.

What is an ending? There's no such thing. Death is the only ending.

I have never made a movie that's attracted a 14-year-old boy.

And what would they be scared of? There's nothing to fear in a perfect world, is there?

If you persist over time, refusing to take offense, making your motive genuine, showing respect, and constantly searching for Mutual Purpose, then the other person will almost join you in a dialogue.

But sometimes the lies we let ourselves believe are for our own good.

The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.

Your state of mind dominates your awareness to such an extent that you can't conceive of any other state of mind other than the state of mind that you're in.

Sometimes the feeling that life is great just swells up inside you and fills you with joy.

I do not know how to make a man think seriously about sin and judgment, and must look to the work of the Holy Spirit for any hint of such a working.

Life, when is spent well, is long.

I don't know if I'm an impressionist or an expressionist. You can call me an American first... I've been labeled doing neimanism, so that's what it is, I guess.

Maybe life is a board game, but I never get to roll the dice.