I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.

I have always believed that there is a need for life-affirming films.

You know, you lose a lot of social skills if you’re a writer. You spend too long alone. And it’s forced me to address that.

Once you start to realize that a film is the sum of its editing, then editing is the thing you're always looking at.

The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.

My grandmother was a huge influence on me and the fact that there was this very strong, rather formidable presence of women in my life has been an enormous value.

The only lesson to extract from any civil war is that it's pointless and futile and ugly, and that there is nothing glamorous or heroic about it. There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic.

Look at it this way: if you write the novel of 'Cold Mountain,' it costs exactly the same to produce and market as a novel set in a room. If you make the film, the disparity of costs is huge.

No studio in Hollywood wanted 'Cold Mountain.' None. No one wanted 'Ripley,' no one wanted 'The English Patient.' That tells you there isn't really an appetite for ambitious movie-making out there.

I don't hold with the notion that only bad books make good movies.

[Abbas Kiarostami] is a great artist and a poet. I sometimes think that if Samuel Beckett made films, he'd make them like Kiarostami makes them.

Angry men with pointy things sent to secure a foreign city are pretty much alike anywhere. That's what I've heard. So far nothing's convinced me different.

Nakajima's presence didn't put any pressure on me, either. Quite the opposite: there was a warmth in the core of my chest when he was around.

We all start not knowing what to do.

I would prefer you not to say, "That was the most terribly written piece I've ever read." That would hurt me. But you don't think I'm the best person in the world? Well, alright.

We cannot allow the American flag to be shot at anywhere on earth if we are to retain our respect and prestige

Strength is built by one's failures, not by one's successes.

Im not this tortured soul or anything.

The man just is, but clothes are becoming.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps.

I daydream about a high school where everybody plays the harmonica: the students, the teachers, the principal, the janitor and the cook in the cafeteria.