It's a weird thing to say, but it would appear to me axiomatic that if you understood fully what I was doing and appreciated it, you would like it.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

To me the director’s job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.

You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

I dream of books!

The truth is often a big, scary wall, no less massive and haunting even after you find a way around it.

I don't lose my temper often; about once every twenty years perhaps.

I personally feel the need to experience life and new music and ideas before I can sit down and start writing music again.

I've always wanted to do more significant stuff. I think of myself as well-informed, but the hardest thing to do is talk about politics and current events and be funny and not just preachy.

The future is taking shape now in our own beliefs and in the courage of our leaders. Ideas and leadership - not natural or social "forces" - are the prime movers in human affairs.

Everywhere I go, kids walk around not with books under their arms, but with radios up against their heads. Children can't read or write, but they can memorize whole albums.

People call to keep me abreast of what's going on.

For the first time ever, we have confronted in reality the sinister power of uncontrolled nuclear energy.

At one point, people thought that Eddie Murphy would only reach one sector of the audience, but now everyone sees everything Eddie Murphy does.