Music - not just the lyrics, but the music itself - expresses confused or illicit passions: rage, lust, envy, frustration, channeling these energies and creating an outlet for them.

People who are given whatever they want soon develop a sense of entitlement and rapidly lose their sense of proportion.

If history starts as a guest list, it has a tendency to end like the memory of a drunken party: misheard, blurred, fragmentary.

Facts might be false if they challenge the conviction of a mind already made up.

Art cannot, perhaps, impose order on life—but it teaches us to admire even the unruliest of revelations.

History is prone to mistakes in identity, and facts are not always solid things.

There is nothing that 'Sesame Street' can't teach you, if you let it.

Racism is an effect of slavery, not the other way around. Once slavery was abolished, not only did racism not disappear, neither did the economic system it upheld.

As night falls silently all around, She carefully turns the last page.

Children believe they are immortal, death is an empty word like the name of a country they’ve never been to on a time-faded map. I wasn’t a child anymore.

The veneer of civilization fell away to reveal desperate animals, humanity at their worst.

A wise man will not communicate his differing thoughts to unprepared minds, or in a disorderly manner.

Treasures are no longer to be got by instrumental art.

It is such a relief to be told the truth.

I have a responsibility, and it's something that I did wrong, and if I could personally apologize to every single person that has lost a loved one from drunk driving I would.

Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately, it takes a lifetime to master.

You try not to talk about the past too much as an artist. Instead, you focus on the continuity of your work.

My films are about faith, and they're made on faith. There has to be faith because making a movie, so many things can go wrong.