I'm obviously really opinionated, but as a producer, you don't necessarily want the person you're working with to try to impress you - you want them to just be themselves.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

To me the director’s job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.

You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

Don't leave life until life leaves you.from the book 'I Know Who You Are!

God lends a helping hand to the man who tries hard.

The way I go about a lovemaking scene is that we will talk about it during the rehearsing time.

Don't call me a saint; I don't want to be dismissed so easily.

I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can no longer believe in you.

Don't wait for people to tell you who you are. Show them.

If you know exactly what you're going to do, what's the good in doing it?

The single minded ones, the monomaniacs, are the only true achievers

If someone like you showed up to abduct me, I'd let you.

When you're making a singular pop song, you don't really need any subject matter. You just sort of say, "Uh, I love you." And then you try to figure out some rhyme for that, and there never is one.