No matter how many times you do it, you don't get used to the sadness - for me at least - of coming to the end of a film.

My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father's first marriage who were rock 'n' roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture.

Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.

I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will.

Acting is the hardest job in the entire world. By far. Harder than ditch digging.

It's a gamble you take, the risk of alienating an audience. But there's a theory - sometimes it's better to confuse them for five minutes than let them get ahead of you for 10 seconds.

My dad was this sort of avant-garde guy who did all kinds of weird things. He was a true original and anybody who met him never forgot him.

I am always looking for that nuance, that moment of truth, and you can't really do that fast.

My writing has a lot to do with who I am, and what my life is like, and my relationships to people.

You write who you are. But you also cheat, and youwrite what you want to be. It's embarrasing to be the guy who madethe movie, knowing you're not exactly who you want to be.

Film school is a complete con, because the information is there if you want it.

That's what attracts us to serious paintings, I think: that shortfall, which we might call "personality", or maybe even "pain".

When you want to give up remember why you started.

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?

Why create churches for 50-year-olds and let culture have the students?

A mouse is small and can go unnoticed: but there is no limit to what a brave heart and a fearless spirit can achieve.

I've done quite a few adverts. I've also done some presenting and acting work in Spain. I did a lot of Spanish education videos for people wanting to learn English.

Record labels have enjoyed a 100-year monopoly of selling plastic and now they're up against a different format.

We didn't know each other [with Larry Kramer at Yale], but we had a lot of mutual friends.

I'm terribly forgetful. I've lost laptops, cell-phones.