You must understand that violence in a movie is only a tool. If it's used badly, it will be horrible. If it's used correctly, it can be very interesting. But, essentially, it's just a tool.

Like all art forms, film is a media as powerful as weapons of mass destruction; the only difference is that war destroys and film inspires.

I don't believe that art makes people violent in any way. I don't. But I do believe art can show people how to be violent and that's much more dangerous in a way.

I think that I am a pornographer, meaning that I make movies based on what excites me and what I would like to see.

The artificial world that we create through images will essentially become real.

Cinema is mass media, it is both overtly gross and exciting. It is our great mirror of society.

Creativity is narcissism. Creativity is falling in love with one's self as you create. It's self-indulgent.

In a way, art is a great way to release your love, fantasy, and desires. It's like a fetish. It's a comfortable way of excising a lot of your conscience.

Look at the birth of anything; it's always more violent than anything you could ever imagine.

We live in a beauty-obsessed culture, which on one hand is absolutely fabulous, but on the flip side, is also dangerously extreme.

Understanding one's own power is more interesting than someone being given something powerful.

When proven wrong, the wise man will correct himself and the ignorant will keep arguing.

In times of turbulence and rapid change, you must constantly be re-evaluating yourself relative to the new realities.

Verse comedy is interesting to me because of the challenge of writing in rhymed couplets, which is not a form that's usually amenable to English, yet to me it gives great possibility for comedy.

I've got four kids to feed and a wife to provide for. It's a worry but a great responsibility as well and one I relish.

I had reconciled myself to being happily out to pasture, a bit.

The biggest lessons I've learned in life have probably come from a bad situation, from an angry situation, even if I wasn't the one who was angry.

Hope lies in what the book title says, finding love and community.

Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer.

The world is a safer and better place that the United States is the strongest military power on earth. The stronger you are, the less likelihood you'll ever have to use it.

We are puzzled and bewildered whenever we see suffering in this world because we have become accustomed to the mercy and the long-suffering of God. Amazing grace is no longer amazing to us.