This basic thing I always do: 'What happened between the character's birth, and page one of the script?' Anything that's not in the story, I'll fill in the blanks.

There's no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there's no excuse for boredom, ever.

I have never been in a natural place and felt that it was a waste of time. I never have. And it's a relief. If I'm walking around a desert or whatever, every second is worthwhile.

It's hard not to get depressed when you pay attention to the world and how strangely and corrupt the people in it sometimes behave.

When I have a day off, I won't spend it at a Hollywood party. I'd rather be at home with paints and a blank canvas.

You should always do the things in life that are both interesting and make you afraid.

Be kind. It's worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them.

You don't have to make something that people call art. Living is an artistic activity, there is an art to getting through the day.

I think that every person has many, many people inside of them. We change our personality depending on who we are talking to or what situation we are in.

I think every family is dysfunctional, and some manage to control it better than others.

My job as an artist, as I see it, is to understand and in some cases to take on various ways of thinking about people and the world that are different from my own, sometimes radically different.

Much that for us is fraught with with happiness or misery, remains almost unnoticed by the rest of the world.

True education makes you beautiful like a butterfly, but it demands a transformation.

The more you know about something the less you fear about it.

She resented a universe that forced her to fabricate cover stories for its more inexplicable vagaries.

Those who criticize the most typically end up solving the least.

Those who are leftists, once in power, are not different from other parties.

My life is more to me than all the wealth of Ilius

What is history, indeed, but a record of change?

Logical thinking keeps you from wasting time worrying, or hoping. It prevents disappointment. Imagination, on the other hand, only gets you hyped up over things that will never realistically happen.

If you have live in the mud for a while, you must not resist being a frog for a while!