My attitude is, I am not a lawyer; I am not a doctor; I am not a scientist. I am a filmmaker and I want to present what each side is saying and let the viewer come to their own conclusion.

I felt like the universe was tapping me on the shoulder saying, "You're the guy who has to tell this story because nobody else is."

Life is much more complex than the black-and-white sound bites that you get on television. There are nuances and shades of gray.

You have to remain open to the situation that you're filming otherwise you might miss the story.

What you hope, what you're trusting the filmmaker to do, is to capture the emotional truth of the situation.

If people spend two hours thinking about the direction of their own lives and can relate to the stories they see on screen, to me that's a success.

Any documentary; any capturing of a non-fiction event, is a hyper-realistic condensation of reality that hopefully reveals an emotional truth. It's never the actual literal truth of an event.

I'm a filmmaker who is known for these ambiguous portraits that tell multiple sides of the story without really telling the audience what to think.

The filmmaker is not telling you what to think.

If a concert film is an experience of the musicianship without critiquing it, then this, too, is dropping you into a world and letting you experience it.

I'm an observer in life, not a participant. That's why I'm a documentarian who looks through a camera. I'm not a touchy-feely person; I'm not a seminar person.

When a fire rises, don't be quick to worry. Find the purpose of the fire, if it's negative, water it down, if positive, feed the flames.

Don't disrespect me, lie about it, and then come smile in my face and act like nothing's wrong.

Winners are people with definite purpose in life.

There's about 260 rooms in the new castle which you go through, but it's all about the game play.

Often people fail to start or complete a task because they don't see any connection between what they're doing and what they really want to accomplish in life.

Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people.

The only purpose of education is freedom; the only method is experience.

Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly.

Chemistry is a hard thing. I don't think you can force it, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have great chemistry outside of work. It's just something that sparks on screen or doesn't.

If you're a black man, they really call you out and have you deal with them.