I thought it would be quite a challenge to direct a mystery thriller. I hadn't really done something like that.

You can't really just think, "Oh, I want to make something that is going to appeal to every single person in the world." You have to just try to make a movie that comes from your heart.

People love to talk, so let them have fun talking.

As a director, you've got to have quite a few projects going because you never know which one will actually come together with the financing and get the green light.

If a scene doesn't work on three levels - it's not advancing the story, the characters, and telling me something new - then put it in the trash.

I thought, "If I can make you feel what it's like for that first super-passionate love, other people might like that too," and, of course, they did.

Since I was a little kid, I did like fairy tale. I did dress up like Little Red Riding Hood. My mom had to make me a cape.

When I was just five years old, I loved the scary layer and the symbolical power of the red cloak. I made my mom make me that red cloak, and I had to wear it on Halloween, two years in a row.

When you're in the editing process, you try different things and you get creative ideas.

When I talk to film students, I always say, "Buy the DVDs and listen to the commentaries, look at the making of, look at the behind-the-scenes," because that's such a great learning tool.

Usually, we have some of those nostalgic moments like, "Oh my god, I can't believe we survived that day," because filmmaking is such a wild roller coaster ride.

Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.

Just watch this moment, without trying to change it at all. What is happening? What do you feel? What do you see? What do you hear?

One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.

People always known me for rappin'. So I guess that maybe just hindered me, like "oh well, I mid-as-well go long term with it."

If it's possible, I binge. There are other shows, like 'The Americans' and 'Game of Thrones,' I watch and have to wait a week.

Deism is logically compatible with evolutionary theory for the simple reason that the theory says nothing about the origin of the universe or of the laws of nature.

The real issue lies in the North beyond the Wall. Stannis becomes one of the few characters fully to understand that, which is why in spite of everything he is a righteous man.

When a young writer comes up to me with an ambitious idea for a 20-book series, I usually tell him to maybe try something smaller to start off with.

Art is nothing if you don't reach every segment of the people.

I mean, we're going to probably debate the Iraq war for at least as long as I'm alive.