I feel like a lot of my work on stage, I've gotten to play a wider range of characters than I have on film. This feels closer to who I am than stuff I've played on stage, or, like, Olive Kitteridge.

I have mad luck. I'm super-good at games like backgammon or anything that requires rolling dice.

Sometimes I feel that the people I'm writing are more real to me than the people around me. When you take that imaginative leap, you're living so much in that world.

I find playwriting really painful. I love it, or I wouldn't do it, but I don't love the theater as much as I love movies.

I find playwriting to be incredibly difficult compared to screenwriting. Part of it is that I grew up watching movies and not watching plays.

Nothing's going to come to you by sitting around and waiting for it.

I think action should be revealed through character, so if you have a plot problem, it's probably a character problem.

What I did have was an incredible amount of belief in myself.

I was really surprised when I started working and realized that you're actually on your own, a lot of the time. It makes you really responsible, as an actor.

I think movies have much more magic than the theater. Theater can be a magical experience, but movies thrust their subjectivity on you in a more profound way.

And when I get bored, it's like the worst parts of me come out. I really veer to self-destructive tendencies quickly.

In the world of your story, your outline is like the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, your characters are all Atheists.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got plans for next Thursday. And I’m not in the mood to have them ruined by some apocalypse.

The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness.

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

Report, report, report. Dig, dig, dig. Think, think, think. Don't stop being a reporter because you've become a columnist.

I believe in living, I believe in birth, I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth and I believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, sea sick sailors, can still be guided home to port

Open your arms to change but don't let go of your values.

It's possible that I've matured as a writer, and I hope I've matured emotionally, but I always find myself revisiting these adolescent scenes.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

People who are unwilling to make mistakes or have made mistakes and have not yet learned from them are those who wake up each morning and continue to make the same mistakes