The thing about movies is if somebody has an idea that works, it's in, and I say that as a screenwriter as well as a director.

Dialogue is used to reveal not what we want to say, but what we are trying to hide.

Star Wars was great at the beginning and crap at the end while Star Trek has always been interesting, and the difference is in the writing, and the thematic intentions.

Look at what people are trying to conceal, and you’ll see that they’re revealing everything.

I'm a homebody, as many writers are, and need to be by myself, and I like to be by the Atlantic Ocean.

I think that gambling is a synthetic experience and that if you have any balls you gamble with your life. I have. So can everybody else.

I need as much of the business of making a film to be in my own workspace. It really ought to be a bit more like doing a novel, alone, at first. I'm feeling my way.

Out of all of the Star Trek movies, I happen to like the most recent one the best. I think it was the best one ever done.

When I was young I was only thinking of writing, and whatever was going on was unreal and comparatively unimportant.

Most films go out like skydivers who have had their chutes packed by a committee of blind schizophrenics.

On historical you take the known facts, dramatize them, and then stitch them together by invention. It's a projective thing.

Ignorance never protected anyone for long.

Forget the beauty, comfort, love and enjoyment. You must to be enough tough on yourself to be strong on others.

Not like Chinese food, where you eat it and then you feel hungry an hour later.

Art has to offer something other than stylized despair.

I am the beneficiary of a lucky break in the genetic sweepstakes.

In the car and in front of the camera I tend to be very calm but behind the scenes I can get fired up and passionate, I just don't see the need to shout my mouth off in public.

Perhaps the greatest self-deceit is to tell ourselves that we can be self-sufficient.

Spirit is the source of peace. It is the source of joy. It is not a duality of happiness and unhappiness, but singular joy.

I'm at Miramax now, where I've actually been treated like a Prince.

Zen insight is not our awareness, but Being's awareness of itself in us.