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.

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.

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.

When things go right it's hard to figure out why, but when things go wrong it's really easy.

I’m an entrepreneur at heart. I’m not afraid of starting up, starting over or even failing for that matter, because the fact that I try new things in itself is a victory.

Gross National Product is our Holy Grail.

There's a reason why every human society has fiction. It teaches us how to be 'good', to behave in a way that is for the benefit of the whole community.

My mom was amazing. She believed in me and we were best friends.

The Clan Mothers ran everything and had the last word. I think that's the answer.

If singing was a color, it would've been the color of that chocolate.

Sound is the vocabulary of nature... noises are as well articulated as the words in a dictionary... Opposing the world of sound is the world of music.

The reason most kids don't like school is not that the work is too hard, but that it is utterly boring.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

Love's reason's without reason