As a first-time director in America, I feel I've been very fortunate.

Listen, you make a big movie, you're going into the Coliseum, and people are going to give you the thumbs up or the thumbs down. And that's part of the game. It's part of the fun as well.

When I drive through a field, I want to see green grass sometimes, and I don't want to see black and white.

Confidence is essential, but ego is not.

You've got to work. You've got to want an audience to sit forward in their chairs sometimes, rather than sit back and be bombarded with images.

Actors get pigeonholed very quickly, particularly movie actors. In the theater, one is more used to casting people against type and trusting that their talent and skill will get them through.

Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie.

I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.

You think about taking audiences on a journey.

You've got to believe as a filmmaker that if a movie's good enough, it's going to survive; and if it's not, well, it won't.

This is the first time in 10 years I don't know what I'm doing next and I'm rather enjoying it. Soon I'll be climbing the walls no doubt, but right now, it's not clear, I'm just enjoying the freedom.

Don’t let your society and environment dictate what you do with your time

Embrace each other with joyful smiles and sacred kiss.

Be optimistic about your dreams.

A star never loses its shine, not even in the dark.

Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.

Danny DeVito later told me that he knew he wanted me for 'Matilda' the second I walked in the door. I'm not sure if this is true, or if he was just being nice, but I was thrilled when I got it.

The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty!

I felt so conflicted about having fled the rez as a kid that I created a whole literary career that left me there.

It often requires more strength and judgment to resist than to embrace an opportunity. It is better to do nothing than to do other than well.

Respectability is the state of never being caught doing anything which gives you pleasure.