There are books where you can really see the moral question, which I think we answer every day for ourselves, in every interaction we have with people, to a lesser or greater degree.

When writing dialogue, I hear it in both Russian and English, and try to find a language that combines the two.

Why are some people highly principled and willing to do anything for their principles, while most of us are not? And I am willing to not only ask, but also answer the question.

Language is a personality as well. People are different when they speak different languages.

I spent seven years writing The Free World. There are a lot of things I accomplished there that I'm very proud of, but I didn't want to spend another seven years writing a book like that.

People everywhere feel differently at different times of their lives.

I think having an uncompromising ideology eventually forces you out of the norm.

We are taught that we can be better than we are. But is there a limit to how good we can be?

In my experience of women, women have a greater capacity. Maybe women, even very pragmatic ones, are less guarded about showing emotions.

We all have some ideological quotient in ourselves. And I think it does guide who we are.

Nothing is easy in writing. I don't think for anyone. But dialogue is probably what comes most naturally to me.

Faith is something you take a day at a time, not something you figured out at the start

Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look around them.

He disposes Doom who hath suffered him.

There is one fat that diabetics can eat without fear. That fat is coconut oil. Not only does it not contribute to diabetes but it helps regulate blood sugar, thus lessening the effects of the disease

And my first film was Carnal Knowledge, another amazing experience, largely because of Mike Nichols, who would tell me you can't do anything wrong because you're doing everything right.

That's what music is for me. It's a place to go to.

The only man who really needs a tail coat is a man with a hole in his trousers.

The question and the cry 'Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance 'I am!'

Here, like everywhere else, laughing and singing, dancing and dreaming are not exactly the whole of reality; and for one ray of sun shining on the hut, the rest of the village remains in the dark.

Our success multiplies each time we lead someone else to success.