There is certainly a part of my filmmaking that harkens to a more simpler commercial kind of taste, but then with this theres certainly a kind of avant-garde, abstract, existential element to it.

When it feels scary to jump, that’s exactly when you jump. Otherwise you end up staying the same place your whole life. And that I can’t do.

When I have people around, I'm a chatterbox. But when I'm alone, I never speak. I don't talk to myself; it's just not my schtick.

When you're on a boat, it is this tiny little island where you have to be completely self-sufficient.

I had a caricature view of the guy in the beret with the big megaphone­­, but a movie director and writer was beyond my role of understanding.

We print money. The people that print the money is actually us. The government of the United States of America. By its very nature, we control that, and this system is there as representation of us.

I grew up in suburban New York City and London, England, where my dad was working.

I did not grow up a cinefile. No one in my family was in the film business or even anything close to it.

I think my films kind of walk this line that Im proud of, that they feel sort of like films of my youth, which were far more commercial.

I consider myself somewhat spiritual, but not practicing.

When fate connects an invisible thread between a man and a woman who are bound to be together, no matter how hard they try to fight against their own destiny, they can’t change what’s meant to be.

There's a little Christmas in all of us, I guess. Even in me.

Even in decline, a virtuous man increases the beauty of his behavior. A burning stick, though turned to the ground, has its flame drawn upwards.

I kept thinking my father would come back, But he never did.

What we do flows from who we are.

So many of my family and friends had lost their battles against cancer. What could I do that my relatives and friends had not? What could I do that would be different?

Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage, Till pitying Nature signs the last release, And bids afflicted worth retire to peace.

If you play it straight it's funny - the best comedy is always played straight down the middle. The adjustment is understanding from the screenplay that a moment is hilarious.

What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.

Miserable people focus on what they hate about their life. Happy people focus on what they love about their life.