Writing is a form of talking, although writing is such an odd thing in and of itself. People go about it in such different ways.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility.

I like to point out that people very often confuse the idea that truth is subjective with the fact that truth is perishable.

People like nonfiction presented to them in a certain way, so that they don't have to think about whether it's true or not. They like it to have that imprimatur of respectability, of genuineness.

They say seeing is believing, but the opposite is true. Believing is seeing.

I'm really interested in self-deception. Really interested in how people live in bubble universes. How people can fail to see the seemingly obvious.

The proper route to an understanding of the world is an examination of our errors about it.

My stuff always starts with interviews. I start interviewing people, and then slowly but surely, a movie insinuates itself.

Everything is a reenactment. We are reenacting the world in the mind. The world is not inside there. It does not reside in the gray matter of the brain.

What is it that angers us?... We have been tricked. In essence, we have been lied to. The problem is not that the photograph has been manipulated, but that we have been manipulated by the photograph.

I think calling someone a character is a compliment.

I have been loved enough, now I want to be respected.

Perspective was my secret weapon, and books gave me plenty of ammunition.

Napoleon would always be extremely fastidious when it came to other people's morals, although his own were frequently questionable.

No one has failed who keeps trying and keeps praying.

Clarence Darrow was a unique and courageous man. Several of my favourite actors have played Darrow... Henry Fonda, Orson Welles and Spencer Tracy.

Love doesn't attack; it infiltrates.

We have such a finite amount of hours on this planet, and there is just no excuse for living a mundane, predictable life in life.

If it seems like you're doing work when you're acting, then you're doing something wrong.

I love when I'm writing and I'm cringing because I know I'm doing something right.

There are certain women who are sexually driven and they can compartmentalize it from an emotional attachment.