If you ignore the murdering and the conniving, Francis Underwood is an effective politician.

I feel it's a responsibility for anyone who breaks through a certain ceiling... to send the elevator back down and give others a helpful lift.

Sometimes the person who is the most logical is the person whom we call insane.

Stay true to your brand and true to your voice and audiences will respond to that authenticity with enthusiasm and passion.

People have different reasons for the way they live their lives. You cannot put everyone's reasons in the same box.

The only thing worse than a loser is someone who won't admit he played badly.

You have to always be ready, always be alive, and always be willing to move in a new direction.

I find it sad that by not talking about who I sleep with, that makes me mysterious. There was a time when I would have been called a gentleman.

Mediocrity is the elephant in the room.

We're all victims of our own hubris at times.

I think you need the failures to get the success. You learn more from that.

I wasn't sitting around years ago thinking I really want to write a novel.

Friends are good,--good, if well chosen.

Ninety percent of films are pretty mediocre, but they have a built-in audience and open on 3,000 screens.

"I am afraid that God has sent these men to lay waste the world".

If you cut a shrub back because it's just too big, and it dies, you haven't lost anything but a plant that couldn't live by your rules.

You know, the people who do indie film and decide who gets those little budgets? They're mean, man. They're cold and very cool-oriented.

Life has very little even ground.

I need to keep reinventing myself.

There's nothing more human than two people making love.

Our most important problems cannot be solved; they must be outgrown.