There are moments in one's life where you look back and you say, 'Well, I wish I had done this differently.

Audiences may be stupid, but they are never wrong.

I was always a filmmaker before I was anything else. If I was always anything, I was a storyteller, and it never really made much of a difference to me what medium I worked in.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

Schools and libraries are the twin cornerstones of a civilized society. Libraries are only good if people use them, like books only exist when someone reads them.

A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

Art doesn't just happen by accident. It is about pulling out new tricks and trying new things.

Leo Tolstoy said the purpose of art is to teach you to love life. And that's what I want.

Art and commerce are not irreconciliable, they are inextricably intertwined.

I'm not really interested in the exploding car or endless sort of dystopian fantasies and superheroes. None of that... that doesn't interest me very much.

No rock and roll ensemble, however inspired, can deliver the kind of musical variety obtainable with the resources of 110 instruments.

Good friends don't have to visit each other every day.

We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.

Italian hospitals are great. The doctor smoking in the emergency room will sign any prescription you ask for.

Doing nothing is opting for the sweetness of stillness...Instead of fighting with that which you cannot control, you might as well just see it through.

A middling talent makes for a more serene life.

I don't see how the people who created the problem can fix it. Texas is worth fighting for, and the best way to fight is to get the politicians out of politics.

One of the great tragedies in human life is to be born a male and not be guided toward the value of a man.

I think anybody who was ever saddened by a movie theater closing would be able to understand this film [Aquarius].

Is there room in my heart for you to follow your heart?

People often swear the first time they see my work. I like that.