In real life, I myself am kind of a rambling guy. I like to travel.

What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?

If you were falling in love and you could go back in time and relive a day and see the banal things you did that you'd forgotten about, you'd weep, looking at that day.

I like actors who, when you see them on screen, you sense a person, not just an actor.

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.

You just never know when you're living in a golden age.

The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.

A pitfall of making a comedy with a studio-and it's also an American cultural thing-is that I get tired of being encouraged to go always for laughs.

I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.

If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.

Only a heart that knows how to love can ever be broken.

Absolute commitment is a great currency for obtaining great things

These dogs didn't bother to bond with us, but stuck out their paws, not to shake hands but so we could slit their wrists and get it the hell over with. (p.51)

If we contest with a lesser opponent, we reduce ourselves, and in the process wind up being lesser accomplished.

Other people's minds aside, not even my own mind flows in the way that I wish.

The system of transportation is not coherent; it is not treated as integral. Roads compete with with railroads and airlines in chaotic fashion, and at immense cost to the nation.

We are a nation conceived, born and nurtured by faith... Our faith is declared in our Constitution, on our currency and in our lives.

I will live and die by this testimony: that I loved a good conscience; that I never invaded another man's liberty; and that I preserved my own.

He smiles a lot. But I think there might be worms inside him making him smile.