As a director you have to be careful you don't over-design the film. You have to be careful that the period aspect does not take over.

As a director, I also get to sit and watch actors and learn from them in a way that I don't get to do when I'm just acting.

I'm a control freak. Totally.

A dream that you don't fight for can haunt you for the rest of your life.

Ripe bananas are the mark of a good produce section. A good produce section is the mark of a superior grocery store. A superior grocery store is the mark of a good man.

Like Joseph Mitchell, I would scour the streets of New York and find little pieces of what other people think of as junk - and collect it.

The thing is, I'm a very practical filmmaker.

Sometimes we all make relationships more complicated than they necessarily have to be.

I write in the mornings. During my down time.

People wear shorts to the Broadway theater. There should be a law against that.

My partner, Beth Alexander, and I want to produce smaller films, but commercially viable films that will enable me to make the kinds of movies I want to make.

Your decisions determine where you will or will not be in later days to come. Rise up and direct them well!

You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry, don't worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.

Charlotte looked up doubtfully, wondering why, as she got older, she seemed to be more afraid of things, not less.

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies~Aristotle

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues

I probably owe as much to Jeff Beck as I do to Son House with connections to the blues.

Painting is a science pursued as an enquiry into the laws of nature...Observation is considered the key to natural science.

I didn't know I was really a writer until I read it in the New York Times. And then I thought, "Oh my god, maybe I can really do this". That was a review of "Margaret."

God loves you because He has chosen to do so.