Documentaries have always inspired me in narrative filmmaking.

Although there was a screenplay, the actors never knew what questions I was going to ask them, and all of my character's voice-over narration and scenes were added after the fact.

New York means so much to people. If you're inclined to leave the nest, New York is where most people think they have to go, and it's been that way since the first skyscraper.

My hunger and desperation, being an actor, an out of work actor - my memory of that is as fresh as an open wound.

I'm in five guilds; that's a lot of dues to pay. So I have to keep on working.

I'm being told it saves money to shoot in Toronto, because of tax benefits, the crews are cheaper, but what I save in the bottom line, I lose in a million other ways.

As a director, I've been able to combine with what I've learned as an actor and as a producer: it melds quite nicely into what I feel like I should have been doing all along.

I've always been schizophrenic; I've never been interested in limiting myself.

On every movie I’ve done as a director, I look at the producers and having done it, I don’t envy them, at all.

I met Steve McQueen once. Well, met isn't really the right word.

To see a comedy in an environment where you're surrounded by other people that are laughing is great. That's probably more satisfying than just watching it by yourself.

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

Man is like a bride unto God. God is jealous when man veers away from Him.

I'm very mature for my age, but I'm also innocent in a lot of ways.

You know Chuck [Schumer] - always got to be the big macher.

All social space is suffused with political meanings and agendas, the very stones and walls a kind of testament to the ongoing struggles for liberation and justices.

Passion is a powerful force. Passion properly directed is unstoppable.

People live up to your expectations, not their potential.

How many people have never raised their hand before?

Prototyping is the conversation you have with your ideas.

We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.