Schools and libraries are the twin cornerstones of a civilized society. Libraries are only good if people use them, like books only exist when someone reads them.

Audiences may be stupid, but they are never wrong.

I was always a filmmaker before I was anything else. If I was always anything, I was a storyteller, and it never really made much of a difference to me what medium I worked in.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

Art doesn't just happen by accident. It is about pulling out new tricks and trying new things.

Leo Tolstoy said the purpose of art is to teach you to love life. And that's what I want.

Art and commerce are not irreconciliable, they are inextricably intertwined.

I'm not really interested in the exploding car or endless sort of dystopian fantasies and superheroes. None of that... that doesn't interest me very much.

There are moments in one's life where you look back and you say, 'Well, I wish I had done this differently.

No rock and roll ensemble, however inspired, can deliver the kind of musical variety obtainable with the resources of 110 instruments.

My mom always said, "Don't date a guy who thinks he's prettier than you."

No poems can please long or live that are written by water drinkers.

My god has always been a laissez-faire deity, giving you the initial goods and sending you on to make your way.

I may not be a pin-up, but I'm one hell of a boxer.

The world only goes forward because of those who oppose it.

I had to learn to value myself before I could expect to be valued by others

How much love did you put into what you did?

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.

My lips got lost on the way to the kiss - that's how drunk I was.

The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.