Thank God I don't live in Los Angeles. I think if you're there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality.

Listen, you make a big movie, you're going into the Coliseum, and people are going to give you the thumbs up or the thumbs down. And that's part of the game. It's part of the fun as well.

When I drive through a field, I want to see green grass sometimes, and I don't want to see black and white.

Confidence is essential, but ego is not.

You've got to work. You've got to want an audience to sit forward in their chairs sometimes, rather than sit back and be bombarded with images.

Actors get pigeonholed very quickly, particularly movie actors. In the theater, one is more used to casting people against type and trusting that their talent and skill will get them through.

Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie.

I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.

You think about taking audiences on a journey.

You've got to believe as a filmmaker that if a movie's good enough, it's going to survive; and if it's not, well, it won't.

This is the first time in 10 years I don't know what I'm doing next and I'm rather enjoying it. Soon I'll be climbing the walls no doubt, but right now, it's not clear, I'm just enjoying the freedom.

Purity is defined by the clearness of the stars

The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.

He who prays five times a day is in the protection of God, and he who is protected by God cannot be harmed by anyone.

There's always that struggle between me wanting to keep [song] new and fresh and then be - I can never get with pop songs being so repetitive.

Surrender to alcohol intoxication provides a partial and subjective shortcut to a more correct state of mind.

In the mere concept of one thing it cannot be found any character of its existence.

I do have a dirty sense of humor.

I don't think I'm better than other people, I think I'm different from other people, because I do different things.

Michelle Obama is a powerful example of someone who has learned how to align her actions with her values, manage boundaries across domains of life, and embrace change courageously.

Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself