The brief flashbacks are sun-kissed, summery and optimistic. It's the only place in the movie you will see red, yellow, orange, or any vibrant colors.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

To me the director’s job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.

You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

If unconventional ideas = sperm, then public opinion = abortion.

Single life is the best life until you get hit by lonely nights.

Profits, like sausages... are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them.

Here is a fine field for talent.

There has never been a communism that worked. They were all dictatorships or oligarchies, every single one.

Interpretation is the evidence of growth and knowledge, the latter through sorrow ? that great teacher.

Kill them all in the Name of the Lord.

Next to knowing how to dress well, fire is one of the most important bush skills there are, because it is one of the few means available to make up most great deficiencies.

I always heard that immigrants had a really hard life when they came to America.

Hits are for squares.