I had absolutely no focus as a kid. I never paid attention at school, I never went to college. Not because we were too poor; we were. But if I wanted to go to college, I would have found a way.

Ive never seen a more terrifying film than 'The Bababook'. It will scare the hell out of you as it did me.

I'm not a fan of Star Wars. That is not for me. That is for my nephews and nieces. I don't get it.

The informing idea of what you want to say and do, that's what will take you from film school to professional - the idea. That's what is original to you.

Style is something that's extremely important, but it must grow naturally out of who and what you are and what the material calls for. It cannot be superimposed.

I believe it's true that there's good and evil in everyone and it's a constant struggle to have your better angels prevail.

Directing is a nice job. It's the best job for me. If I had to pay money to do it, I would do it... Directing is playing. Acting.

To me, the art of movies is to take a two-dimensional image and give the illusion of depth.

Violence is not funny.

And it was only a week later that I realized a close up of Steve McQueen was worth the greatest landscape you could find.

There are many untalented people making millions of dollars in the film business.

The mud of this body-complex (pudgal - that which charges and disharges) is such that the harder one tries to get out, the deeper and deeper he sinks into it.

Find a girl, settle down, If you want you can marry.

I think that people that are not sensitive, who seem to bang through life, do survive, but I don't think they get the really soaring feelings that people who are more artistically bent can get.

If you break a discipline once, the next transgression becomes much easier.

There are good mothers and bad ones, but most of them are somewhere in-between.

When I'm in the country with all of the kids around and cooking, that's when I'm most relaxed. When I'm in the country I like to cook.

No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.

If you allow failure to take on more of a role in your life than possible, then you'll always look at it on the defense and you'll always shoot yourself down before it even goes anywhere.

In a false person, sacraments do not produce any effect.

I am not a morning person, but I always work out - always.