When you've written a movie, you then get together with a whole lot of people and make it. In many ways, I think it is far nicer to be with people rather than being completely solitary.

I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter.

Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?

For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.

Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line.

Never make a promise - you may have to keep it.

Initially with The Butcher Boy, there was this kid growing up in this strange, weird environment that I remember from when I was a kid. And Patrick's vision was so complete there.

Well, Company of Wolves was about that literally, about fairy tales.

My conception of it was that in a normal film you have a story with different movements that program, develop, go a little bit off the trunk, come back, and end.

If movies have to satisfy every possible quadrant before they're even made, they're dull. You only get great things when people overreach themselves.

There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?

So, I'm no longer holding myself hostage to less than what I deserve. It's an inward thing first. It's always an inward thing first.

To fall asleep in your embrace,Land of our dreams, what bliss,O you our cradle, you our grave,You the new hope we ever crave,Peninsula so beautiful,Finland for aye our all!

"Legacy code" often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling.

Most of the world is covered by water. A fisherman's job is simple: Pick out the best parts.

What I am interested in with birds, just as I am with spiders or monkeys, is what they do and why they do it.

The ocean of solutions is within, enliven that. It's a world of clues, a world of mystery but the mystery can get solved, you can find a lot of answers for these things within.

Nobody will be able to forgive me but myself.

He[ Italo Calvino] always said it would be impossible to try to make films out of his books, though he hoped it would happen because that's where the money was.

Every leaf is a spacious plain; every line a flowing brook; every period a lofty mountain.

Muslims must learn that if they make belligerent and fanatical claims upon the tolerance of free societies, they will meet the limits of that tolerance.