I'm drawn to making movies about contemporary life. The reason I choose institutions is because they provide a limit, a boundary.

My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.

I don't like to read novels where the novelist tells me what to think about the situation and the characters. I prefer to discover for myself.

I'm very careful of not being critical of other people's movies, which work in different styles. I think some of my movies can be interpreted as critical of their subjects.

I'm in no way suggesting that I succeed, but it's inspiring to read somebody who does succeed and from whom, in a general way, you can draw examples and nourishment and sustenance.

I'm too busy to be nostalgic, which is one of the reasons to keep busy. I'm not a very sentimental person.

Documentary filmmaking ruins you for real life, because you learn to be extremely attentive.

Anybody whose mind is functioning at all can't be content with the way the world works.

In moviemaking, you learn to pay attention to detail, because so much is in the detail. And when you're shooting, you try to be very alert to what's going on, even if you're tired.

I do not think that my films or films by any other filmmaker represent "THE TRUTH." I do not feel the need to categorize my films or anyone else's.

It is always a problem to know what an image means.

The world we see is a painting colored by our fears and desires.

My mind is my laboratory.

There's no way I'm goin' down. I don't go down for nobody.

We landed, in fact, parallel to a canal, like there were two runways: one for us and one for waterfowl.

I don't know if they're really like everybody else, or if they're able to pretend they are.

One remains young as long as one can still learn, can still take on new habits, can bear contradictions.

Immortality without eternity is a rope with only one end.

I feel like it's always about embracing what it is that you think is wrong with you. It's often times your greatest 'flaw' which actually forays into what is also your greatest strength.

I've operated and launched newspapers all over the world.

No matter how old you become, I'll always hold your hand tenderly. just like how I held it on the day that you were born. I love you, son.