Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.

It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.

The only reward for love is the experience of loving.

I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.

The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.

I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

Blackmail is more effective than bribery.

A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.

A good man knows when to sacrifice himself, a bad man survives but loses his soul.

I knew in that moment that everything happens for a reason, but we can’t always know the reason when the journey begins. Some things we can only understand at the end of our journey.

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

If a great comedy landed on my doorstep, I would find it hard to say no.

The corporation cannot be ethical, its only responsibility is to make a profit.

Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark.

I don't know what happiness is. I have periods of feeling joyous and peaceful and excited about what I'm doing, but I am also frequently very sad.

Earth's saddest day and gladdest day were just three days apart!

Reverie is the groundwork of creative imagination; it is the privilege of the artist that with him it is not as with other men an escape from reality, but the means by which he accedes to it.

Age, I do abhor thee, youth, I do adore thee.

This is my first wuxia movie and I must consider this before trying to make something with my own.