The only people who really love the '80s are millennials. We had Reagan and Bush for our entire youth, the culture was terrible, the fashions were terrible, the movies were terrible.

I try and make non-fiction films that feel like fiction, so I'm always looking for the subtext and that's what really excites me.

Sometimes, you chase the moment and you can never catch it. Films take so long to make that you can never anticipate what the cultural landscape will be when the film enters the world.

When I grew up, we had no babysitters and nobody every observed us. People don't parent like that today. They're very hands-on; kids are constantly being supervised.

Oftentimes when people make movies about the '80s, they go back and look at '80s films, [but] those look nothing like the '80s. It's some watered-down version of reality.

You have Kurt [Cobain], and he's singing about your experiences. They're our collective experiences.

Everybody feels protective and possessive about Kurt [Cobain] , and I think that can be attributed to his unique gift, an ability to touch our lives, and make us feel like he's our friend.

You can't divorce yourself from your own life experiences.

I've never had access to another person's art and work or, particularly, someone who is as prolific and was able to externalize his interior world as deeply as Kurt [Cobain] could.

I never met Kurt Cobain, but I felt like I got to know him in a manner probably more intimate than anyone I've known outside of my family.

Kurt [Cobain ]was a feminist. A lot of the bashing against Courtney [Love] I think has to deal with gender bias and the media, and I think that he liked that she was taking the attention off of him.

People are gonna disappoint you sometimes. We’re flawed creatures. Not one of us is perfect, not even you, and you’ve gotta let people mess up and then you’ve gotta forgive them. That’s just life.

You want peace so badly and in the wanting of it there is no peace. Only when the wanting stops will you discover that peace has been there all along.

everything happens for a reason.

It's our choices that matter in the end. Not wishes, not words, not promises.

Democracy is something that you must learn each generation. It has to be taught.

Forgiveness is always free. But that doesn't mean that confession is always easy. Sometimes it is hard. Incredibly hard. It is painful to admit our sins and entrust ourselves to God's care.

repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the sea; the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.

If you get to be a really big headliner, you have to be prepared for people throwing bottles at you in the night.

Man, my girl is one tough chick when she wants to be. I wonder if it has something to do with those big, comfy granny panties she’s got on.

I'm a fan of meeting readers face to face, at reader events, where we're able to sit down and take some time to talk.