You know, you lose a lot of social skills if you’re a writer. You spend too long alone. And it’s forced me to address that.

I have always believed that there is a need for life-affirming films.

Once you start to realize that a film is the sum of its editing, then editing is the thing you're always looking at.

The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.

My grandmother was a huge influence on me and the fact that there was this very strong, rather formidable presence of women in my life has been an enormous value.

The only lesson to extract from any civil war is that it's pointless and futile and ugly, and that there is nothing glamorous or heroic about it. There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic.

Look at it this way: if you write the novel of 'Cold Mountain,' it costs exactly the same to produce and market as a novel set in a room. If you make the film, the disparity of costs is huge.

No studio in Hollywood wanted 'Cold Mountain.' None. No one wanted 'Ripley,' no one wanted 'The English Patient.' That tells you there isn't really an appetite for ambitious movie-making out there.

I don't hold with the notion that only bad books make good movies.

[Abbas Kiarostami] is a great artist and a poet. I sometimes think that if Samuel Beckett made films, he'd make them like Kiarostami makes them.

Betrayals during war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace.

The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?

Every day you should wake up with the excitement in knowing that God’s plans for you are far greater than your dreams for yourself. The best is yet to come!

The idea behind digital computers may be explained by saying that these machines are intended to carry out any operations which could be done by a human computer.

The Republicans are many things, but they're not dumb.

If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.

I know what I wish Ralph Nader would investigate next. Marriage. It's not safe, it's not safe at all.

Free love sounds great.

Knowing what must be done does away with fear.

We can not lead an organization, we can run an organization. We can only lead people.

Sometimes, I even learn new techniques from my students. Although I am still a student at the Art Institute, I think that I have learnt a lot from the classes that I have already taken.