There was a lot of stuff [in Rock of Ages] that had effects in it and I thought it was too smooth. I thought it would be sexier if it were in-camera cuts. So I did that.

The discovery of dance has changed my life in unimaginable ways.

You are the architect of your own loneliness.

I feel like a lot of my past career was going to film school, making a lot of different kinds of movies. I made a bunch of comedies, I made one drama and I made a couple musicals.

When I put something into motion, the creativity starts to make other people want to jump in, and then a lot of people get employed. I'm just like a shark, in that way. If I stop swimming, I'll die.

I grew up in Brentwood, but I live now in Los Feliz. I grew up on the beach, now I live under the Hollywood sign.

People love seeing people trying to change stuff.

I actually had less time and the exact same budget on Hairspray, which was few years ago and this is a much bigger movie [then Rock of Ages]. That's the way studios do it now.

I'm addicted to directing!

I will never lose anything that an audience will miss.I turned things that were scripted as effects into in-camera stuff, which is sexier.

I'm living at a very intense discomfort level because my career has been predicated on safety.

No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.

He who sings scares away his woes.

During the prayers of the day, there was one less “amen”.

Am I a man? To want you so badly that nothing else matters? To see you, and know I would sacrifice honor or family or life itself to lie wi' you, even though ye'd left me?

As a child, I was called stupid and lazy. On the SAT I got 159 out of 800 in math. My parents had no idea that I had a learning disability.

I want to be with my best friend. My best friend, my wife. Who could ask for anything more?

Life's too short so we should enjoy it without forget our limits.

My grandmother would croon over every scrap of meat on a sparerib like a medieval relic hunter musing on the knucklebone of a saint.

I like to get far away from myself when I'm acting.

I lack the peace of simple things. I am never wholly in place. I find no peace or grace. We sell the world to buy fire, our way lighted by burning men.