I mean, I don't want to sound - of course it's very nice, people come up and say appreciative things about my work. But the loss, in terms of privacy and anonymity, is no small thing to me.

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.

Some people will of course accuse me of misanthropy and cynicism. I can't celebrate humanity but I'm not out to indict it either. I just want to expose certain truths.

A palindrome is a word or pattern that instead of developing in different directions it folds in on itself so that the beginning and end mirror each other, that they are the same.

The ability to take pleasure in one's life is a skill and is a kind of intelligence.

When I want to show the kind of meanness people are capable of, to make it believable I find I have to tone it down. It's in real life that people are over the top.

So far, at least, I haven't found a way to tell my kind of stories without making them both sad and funny.

Usually the audience has no idea that the censored version of whatever movie they're watching isn't the original.

Casting is everything. If you get the right people they make you look good.

Part of it has to do with this business of being approached in public. I have a distinctive look - it's partly the glasses I wear - and people seem to remember me once they've seen me.

And that's just what I'm saying. I would never want to be like certain people, who change the way they dress, go out in disguise, wear a big floppy hat and dark shades. I would hate that.

Resentment generates hate

Grief. This is what it does to people. It makes them strangers to themselves.

Japanese had never seen a Western-style circus, and most of them had probably never seen foreigners, either.

When you're challenged, you're totally alive and totally dealing with reality, particularly if it could be dangerous. And that excites me!

I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.

My view is that when in doubt, society should err on the side of life.

As long as karma exists, the world changes. There will always be karma to be taken care of.

I want to make a series of movies that run together, so if any crazy lunatic wants to watch them all in a row, there will be a consistency of tone.

Nourish your eye and spirit with inspiring things. They will bloom with your tending.

The Forty Rules of Love is a wise, joyous page-turner... and one that speaks urgently to our war-ravaged times.