I'd like to work with the missus, but there's nothing in the pipeline at the moment.

It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't.

We're not unique. We're quite volatile as individuals, but that doesn't work exponentially when we are together. Relationships are about eating humble pie.

My principal job is to make interesting and entertaining films, and I'm not proud of which format or which particular technique I use. I just wanted the film to look good.

I'm not under too much of an illusion of how smart or un-smart I am because filmmaking ultimately is about teamwork.

If somebody has a better idea than me, I'll take it if it surpasses what we have on the page because at the end of the day, it's me that takes the credit anyway!

If you change the rules on what controls you... you will change the rules on what you can control.

I got into film-making because I was interested in making entertaining movies, which I felt there was a lack of.

The best thing to do is find one person in your life and try to love them unconditionally. If you've accomplished that, you've accomplished a lot.

We can all be conned but at what point do we realize that we're being conned and to what point do we allow ourselves to be conned?

I think there's a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It's not an intellectual process, it's an instinctive process.

But preserve your mistrust of the page, for a book is a fortress, a place of weeping, the key to a desert, a river that has no bridge, a garden of spears.

Fiction doesn’t tell us something we don’t know, it tells us something we know but don’t know that we know.

An assumption is the joke

Be good sweet maid and let who can be clever.

Adolescence is such a fun time in your life, because you think you know it all, and you haven’t gotten to the point where you realize that you know almost nothing.

A great operation on the wrong patient is just as bad as a horrible operation on the right patient. So, you have to have all that together.

I like to say that Bobby Fischer was the greatest player ever. But what made Fischer a genius was his ability to blend an American freshness and pragmatism with Russian ideas about strategy

We're already saying it's not the dog, but you need to adopt this lifestyle which is exercise, discipline, and affection.

When I was five or six, I asked to sing at a big family party, and ever since I got up there in front of everyone in my suit - it had a blue collar, like in 'Scarface' - I had the bug.

When I look at some of my old work, the pieces I find most interesting are the ones with people in them.