It's so rare that you meet your idols and they outdo your expectations.

Filmmaking is incredible introspective. It forces you to sort of examine yourself in new ways.

We've always been a band who's taken forever to do things. After writing 'Persona' I think we wrote about four songs in three years!

The truth is, writing and directing are two very different jobs. They're not even remotely the same job. It took me a while, as a director, to understand that.

Ive found that if you just try to make the film you want, youll find the right audience. If you try to please everyone, youre going to make really boring films.

The more work you put in on your outline and getting the skeleton of your story right, the easier the process is later.

This is what I do for fun - brainstorm about monsters!

I do love writing but it is a lonely profession. You're lonely and optimistic at the same time.

The greatest villain of all time is The Joker - he always has been, and I don't know anyone who's not going to have Heath Ledger's performance burnt into their brains for the rest of their lives.

I happen to like things that are funny and dramatic at the same time. I don't see the difference.

Everything I've ever worked on has been hard to classify.

For love I have invested my life with no return

You can break a thing, but you cannot always guide it afterward into the shape you want.

Authenticity reduces stress and produces faith in oneself and in the potential to grow and learn.

Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one.

Memory has the singular characteristic of recalling in a friend absent, as in a journey long past, only that which is agreeable.

Do you remember Italy?

Nothing teaches you like getting leveled. And I got leveled in my early 30s. Nothing went exactly the way I thought it would.

O money, money, money. I'm not necessarily one of those who think thee holy, but I often stop to wonder how thou canst go out so fast when thou comest in so slowly.

Sometimes, it is best to listen, ask the super question, for ambition is hustle.

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.