There's a difference between failures and things that are bad.

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.

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.

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.

Wiping the rivulet of sweat running down my ear with the bottom of my muscle shirt, I snuck a sniff under my pit. Whoa. Kill a moose

We must seek the spirituality of the soul, to find our sacred-path.

The universe is full of doors.

Everything is, the way it is, for a reason. Or it isn't. Or neither. Or both. It's so hard to tell. It's so hard to tell you're a mile away by the Luke in your eye.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly.

If you can't say yes, it's no. Don't sugarcoat it. Don't talk yourself into yes just to seem like a nice guy. No one ever went broke because he or she said "NO" too often.

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.

What I've got to live up to, is being myself. If I do that, the rest will take care of itself.