I still think that being thrown in a very competitive environment where you really have to see what you are made of - certainly when you come out of nowhere - was good for me.

The fun of directing for me, other than working with the actors, is trying to extract those ideas that you have in your head and make them real.

I've been clawing my way to directing since I was a kid.

I just wanted to make movies, but I never though about, "How am I being perceived because of my culture or my skin?"

If you can make the day, you can do whatever you want.

TV is all new to me because I came from features.

Ryan Murphy just gives new people a shot, and it takes a lot of confidence and generosity to do that.

I don't set out to do something weird, but if you see something a certain way and it's a little left of center, and you can realize it, that's a real thrill.

It becomes an extension of your imagination to make something tangible and concrete.

To me film school was film history because there weren't a lot of books out there that I had access to.

At some point, you have an opportunity to not be a first-time filmmaker anymore. You can embrace the genre and show the world how you can tell stories on a bigger scale.

If you are focused on your calling, the efforts of any adversary will prove powerless

A breeze blew softly, slightly rippling the water as it carried the heady scents of late Carolina springtime through the air. Honeysuckle. Jasmine. Ripe, pungent river mud. Ah, the world felt right.

A dream doesn't become a goal until you write it down.

A sentence is made up of words, a statement is made in words.... Statements are made, words or sentences are used.

I like to say that I had a really good musical education because it was inclusive of all styles of music and I like it like that.

It is poor faith that needs fair weather for standing firm. That alone is true faith that stands the foulest weather.

If I don't go to mass, necessarily, every day, but I definitely go to the church every day. That's how I start my day. I like to get in there for about 15 to 20 minutes and say my prayers.

Lansens is a willing storyteller.... As a writer, she desires a particular kind of reader, one who wants above all to be transported--who might sit at her knee, the hearth.

Someone once said to me, 'Are you telling me that chair isn't real, that it's only thought?' I said 'Of course the chair is real. But it comes to you via Thought

You have to believe in the process. You have to believe in the things that you are doing to help the team win. I think you have to take the good with the bad.