TV is a safe place to develop real characters.

That's why 'The Bourne Identity' has that sort of shaky style, because for the most part, Matt Damon and I were sneaking around Paris and shooting where we didn't have permits.

At the end of the day, it's still a show about guys who ride extremely fast motorcycles for a living.

I can't impress people with the pedigree of obscure French filmmakers that got me into film. It was Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. I really thought I wanted to make dumb action movies.

In movies, you can basically buy the audience into the theater. If you spend enough money on visual effects, even if you are lacking in story and character, you might still pull it off.

To be a lone filmmaker thousands of miles from home with nobody believing in me, that seems romantic.

I make movies for me and posterity. I'm more scared of history than I am of the studio.

If you do something that's really original, you discover why everybody else does it the other way, usually. There's a reason cliches exist, 'cause they work.

It's no secret that my process is a little bit loose and can be a little bit infuriating to a studio if they don't know what they're signing up for.

When I was shooting 'The Bourne Identity,' I had a mantra: 'How come you never see James Bond pay a phone bill?' It sounds trite, but it became the foundation of that franchise.

I probably shouldn't treat interviews as therapy sessions, but I don't keep a diary, so these end up being my way of keeping track of where I'm at and letting it all out.

In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part. To sleep for a season and hear no word Of true love's truth or of light love's art, Only the song of a secret bird.

What is life without its angles of difficulty and defeat, and its tip of triumph and power?

For where there is love of man, there is also love of the art.

Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.

I would rather stop [making movies] too soon than too late.

If living on fruits and water is of superior merit, monkeys and fish will go to heaven before men.

My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! It seemed not so wild a dream.

The loss of national identity is the greatest defeat a nation can know, and it is inevitable under the contemporary form of colonization.

Antiliberals endlessly berate their enemies for instrumental thinking. But they do not clearly explain the evil of producing better goods at a lower cost.

On an overcrowded planet where more species slip toward extinction every day, should one species have the right to multiply and consume at will, even as it nudges others to oblivion?