Art doesn't just happen by accident. It is about pulling out new tricks and trying new things.

Audiences may be stupid, but they are never wrong.

I was always a filmmaker before I was anything else. If I was always anything, I was a storyteller, and it never really made much of a difference to me what medium I worked in.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

Schools and libraries are the twin cornerstones of a civilized society. Libraries are only good if people use them, like books only exist when someone reads them.

A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

Leo Tolstoy said the purpose of art is to teach you to love life. And that's what I want.

Art and commerce are not irreconciliable, they are inextricably intertwined.

I'm not really interested in the exploding car or endless sort of dystopian fantasies and superheroes. None of that... that doesn't interest me very much.

There are moments in one's life where you look back and you say, 'Well, I wish I had done this differently.

No rock and roll ensemble, however inspired, can deliver the kind of musical variety obtainable with the resources of 110 instruments.

It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.

My mother used to say that sometimes if you turn a tragedy over in your hand, you can see a miracle running through it, like fool's gold in the hardest shard of rock.

We'll all be the first to hold up our hands and take it on the chin [can't all be the first Ash!]

Criticism is only words about words, and of what use are words about such words as these?

Half-uttered praise is to the curious mind, as to the eye half-veiled beauty is, more precious than the whole.

Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off.

The thirst of soul is sweeter than the wine of material things, and the fear of spirit is dearer than the security of the body.

You know," he (Tweedledee) added very gravely, "it's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle--to get one's head cut off." pg. 199

My biggest influences are strong, creative women that chart their own path, lead their own lives and drive the course of history.

Doubt, fear and regret are the three villains of success. If you close the door on the first two, you will never have to worry about meeting the third.