Setting goals can blind you to opportunities. You might be trying to get to point C. When opportunity B comes, you don't even look at it because you're going straight to C.

Cat lovers turn into cat collectors.

When I look back on my childhood, I think of that short time in Beirut. I know that seeing the city collapse around me forced me to grasp something many people miss: the fragility of peace.

Part of filmmaking is always a guessing game, and part of it is always a game of trust.

She is such a scene-stealer. She's got these lashes and big eyes, and when she walks on to the set everybody just says "ooh."

I don't consider a lot of actors that I really admire movie stars.

I was just a quiet kid, really. I wasn't the class clown at all.

If you're working on a movie, you want it to be projected on the largest tapestry possible, and the sound to be perfect, and for that kind of communal experience of the movies to take place for it.

I really don't make a concerted effort to try to find a type of role.

I've never had a clear road map. When things come along, I benefit.

I can't not find humor in elements of most parts of life, but at the same time nothing ever seems perpetually funny to me.

Passion is the 'not-so-secret' ingredient to success. Passion drives hard work, persistence and creativity.

It is with eight lengthy legs we use to catch food, balance and knit a beautiful silk bed, but as babies we had lost our bones and skin, and hence our legs we had shed.

Negative friends are almost as destructive to your life as your negative thoughts and beliefs.

Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside.

It looks like I'm this huge shark going in for the kill... I don't know what I was thinking.

Enthusiasm: If you don’t FEEL enthusiastic, ACT enthusiastic. Soon, you’ll BE enthusiastic. Double your enthusiasm and you’ll probably double your income.

I would rather Google other people than Google myself.

The American way of war is to build an army, then another, then a third, while building fleets. If the war is still on at that point we smash.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

Now that The Thorn and the Blossom has come out and I'm done with my doctoral degree (yes, I'm finally Dr. Goss), I'm turning to longer projects.