To me, watching a movie is like going to an amusement park. My worst fear is making a film that people don't think is a good ride.

Comic books and graphic novels are a great medium. It's incredibly underused.

Turning 30 was when my parents both got cancer and were fighting it and beat it, but their mortality started to get to me. Everything wasn't as hunky-dory like it was.

As filmmakers, we can show where a person's mind goes, as opposed to theater, which is more to sit back and watch it.

I had some big ups and downs when I was in my 20s and the one thing I learned was, no matter how low it gets, something good will come along - something always comes out of that dark period.

I think it's important as a filmmaker, as any person working in the arts, that you've got to try new stuff and challenge yourself and take chances.

I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.

I'm Godless. I've had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking

Every film had its own grammar. And it's your job as a director to basically figure out a language to tell a story.

At the end of Requiem all I wanted to do was get a DV camera and just do a small film. But then the hunger comes back.

I hope that Requiem is better than Pi. I hope that Pi is better than my student films, and I'm hoping that I'm getting better as I get older.

Alas, between the “shouldn’t” and the “shouldn’t have”—that is precisely where life happens.

There are a lot of clear thinkers everywhere.

Cool to me is following what you believe in.

Failure is not an option, so why talk about it?

I'd like to think a baseball picture is somewhere in my future.

My mother was an immigrant from Lebanon to the United States. She came when she was 18 years old in 1920.

Opinion is the companion of probability within the medieval epistemology.

Marine Le Pen may want me dead, that's possible, but she must not count on my co-operation

I was a daydreamer as a kid. I want to act because of whatever artistic bone is in my body. I want to explore what it is to be alive. I just want to make good sh-t.

I want to see an open and tolerant society here in the United Kingdom, I want to see a country that works for everyone whatever their background.