My working life is me doing what I want to do. This is that. I've made movies that people don't go to see.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

To me the director’s job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.

You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

What makes the desert beautiful, ' said the little prince, 'is that somewhere it hides a well...

Show them how to fly and they will shine upon the clear blue skies, show them where to fly and they will fly upon the skies

It shouldn’t surprise us…to find that prayer is not finally about getting things from God, but getting God.

Time is an available instrument for reaching the eternal.

Nobody is gonna love you like you. You're gonna be your best salesman.

You can't build a substantial V out of turtles!

We live inside our mind. That's all there is. Everything that you experience is not external, it's internal. All your experiences are predicated upon your awareness field.

Why independence? If the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow.

The secret ballot makes a secret government; and a secret government is a secret band of robbers and murderers.

Art = a mad search for individualism.