A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We're desperate people.

I was not a collective person or a bohemian; I was an elitist.

The world was like a huge red carpet out ahead of me to be walked on. And it stretched on and on, no end.

What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties.

The real challenge is not simply to survive. Hell, anyone can do that. It’s to survive as yourself, undiminished.

Look for the contradictions in every character, especially in your heroes and villains. No one should be what they first seem to be. Surprise the audience.

Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed.

Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.

I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.

You've got to keep fighting; you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.

Wonder is our need today, not information.

In this modern world it is easy to be complex but difficult to be simple. At least try to keep your mind simple.

Such beautiful strength lives in uncompromising humility.

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given.

Happiness is never really so welcome as changelessness.

But now my task is smoothly done, I can fly, or I can run Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend, And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the Moon.

I think music is my favorite thing to do, but I go through periods where I think differently.

Just another four-letter word.

There is no man in this world without some manner of tribulation or anguish, though he be king or pope.

I have always believed that the decision to have an abortion generally should be between a woman, her doctor, her conscience, and her God.

I feel like I'm almost ready to write fiction about the border. But even after 10 years of writing nonfiction about it, I don't think I know quite enough to do it right.