My films are as much concerned with truth as anything in vérité. Maybe more so.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility.

I like to point out that people very often confuse the idea that truth is subjective with the fact that truth is perishable.

People like nonfiction presented to them in a certain way, so that they don't have to think about whether it's true or not. They like it to have that imprimatur of respectability, of genuineness.

They say seeing is believing, but the opposite is true. Believing is seeing.

I'm really interested in self-deception. Really interested in how people live in bubble universes. How people can fail to see the seemingly obvious.

The proper route to an understanding of the world is an examination of our errors about it.

My stuff always starts with interviews. I start interviewing people, and then slowly but surely, a movie insinuates itself.

Everything is a reenactment. We are reenacting the world in the mind. The world is not inside there. It does not reside in the gray matter of the brain.

What is it that angers us?... We have been tricked. In essence, we have been lied to. The problem is not that the photograph has been manipulated, but that we have been manipulated by the photograph.

I think calling someone a character is a compliment.

Money is a great asset, talent is an extraordinary asset, and courage is an exceptional asset.

In the end, we begin.

6 Reasons Why You Should Be A Cat: 1) Free Food. 2) Free Rent. 3) Sleep As Long As You Want. 4) Look Great With No Effort. 5) Toes Look Like Beans. 6) License to Kill!

Thou large-brain'd woman and large-hearted man.

You sit or stand in the subway, and you look around - I do, because I don't have a phone so I'm not playing a game - and you see people.

Lyrics are weak, like clock radio speakers.

The original vocals had an awful lot of work put into them at the time, and I wasn't really sure that I could better them - I don't know if I have bettered them.

The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits.

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

I thought film was more important than life itself for many years. But I was naive to the world until my first child was born in 1985.