You have to let life come and go.

We're living in a world that says that if you engage in mass fraud, you'll be rewarded, but if you go down the street and steal an orange juice, you get arrested.

The job of the writer and the filmmaker is not to impose his vision on the reality, but to be inspired by the reality and create a vision out of that.

I never say "Action" or "Cut." Never. I think that would disturb the life from happening in and around everything.

Since Hollywood seems to be more interested in people wearing tights and using powers, there seems to be a fertile ground for movies about real human beings.

It's hard for me to say you have to accept that the world is meaningless and the landscape is there before and after. That's not something we learn much in our culture growing up.

Sometimes we have dreams, but we just can't make them. That's normal.

I think happy and hope is more hopeful when you acknowledge that there's awful things too.

I'm not going to read reviews like, "I have to do these things." Any good criticism makes you think about your own films and about cinema in general.

I like to give the actors the freedom, and they know they have the freedom, to change anything they want at any time.

The actors come and you start seeing things happen for real.

One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death, but I think, as I thought then, that it is better to die violently and not too old.

Book burnings. Always the forerunners. Heralds of the stake, the ovens, the mass graves.

Disconnect from society’s pressure to conform. Do things your own way.

All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge.

In general, generalization is to lie, to tell lies.

I needed to explore my talent and versatility and see if I had another side to me, another sound.

Sin is still sin - no matter how you spell it.

With my writing, because I live it, I have to be consumed by it, and that means you have to forget your other life, which is constantly pulling you from your work.

If you don't control your temper, your temper will control you.

Mahoney: You have to live. Mr. Magorium: Darlin'...I have.