You have to be involved and relate to the characters in order to make a film that is true emotionally.

I like hiring people based on a feeling - this person gets it - rather than what they've done in the past.

Even in this world where you’re getting everything you need and having this nice life, there’s still loneliness and longing and disconnection.

I always aspire to that, where it feels like the film was made by the characters as opposed to the filmmakers. I try to be invisible.

Don't differentiate between 'This is a job' and 'This is what I'm doing for fun.' It's all simultaneous.

You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.

The things that are really out of control, and scary, are emotions - of people around you, that are unpredictable, or those in yourself which are unpredictable.

If I leave my phone in the car and go to dinner or something for a few hours, I'm very proud of myself.

The past is just a story we tell ourselves.

Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.

Be willing to get fired for a good idea.

Throughout the history of mankind, the virtues embraced by humanity have remained true, unwavering, and consistent.

I never really wanted to die. But I followed through anyway. The pain in my heart was excruciating, and death was beautiful.

We read our children stories starring elephants and monkeys and bears to teach them about nobility, curiosity and courage, to warn them against selfishness and stubbornness.

Sacrificers ... are not the ones to pity. The ones to pity are those that they sacrifice. Oh, the sacrificers, they get it both ways. A person knows themselves that they're able to do without.

Buddhism suggests that you have that choice; you are in the driver's seat. Hertz or somebody has put you there. You have an absolute choice about what you experience in your mind.

The curious thing about fishing is you never want to go home. If you catch something, you can't stop. If you don't catch anything, you hate to leave in case something might bite.

Poverty ... is already half-Christian by its very nature; it has everything to gain by a doctrine which makes so little of the present and the visible, and so much of the future and the unseen.

I'm still bald, I just wear a toupee.

If it grows on a plant, it's healthy. If it's made in a plant, don't eat it.

When you have stopped learning you have begun to die.