I wanted to do a political film that is as nonpartisan as can be, because I wanted to do a story that was American. I wanted to tell an American tragedy.

I don't think writers should write about answers. I think writers should write about questions.

As a general rule, I don't plan to travel with my Oscars, but we may have to make an exception.

We think we know what's right. With excessive pride comes blindness.

I don't think it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre.

I was in a cult for thirty-four years. Everyone else could see it. I don’t know why I couldn’t.

We crash into each other just so we can feel something.

We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets.

I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me.

You have to be careful of the advice you take.

You hear this story that we're all on the left, but when there's a demonstration, you count how many actors actually come out. If there's a half dozen, that would be a big day.

An undutiful Daughter will prove an unmanageable Wife.

When you study natural science and the miracles of creation, if you don't turn into a mystic you are not a natural scientist.

Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.

A good man regards the root; he fixes the root, and ail else flows out of it. The root is filial piety; the fruit brotherly love.

When I go on the road now, which is less than before, but still more than I'd like to, I think of myself primarily as a singer. Not a songwriter, not a celebrity, just a man who likes to sing.

People are not fundamentally bad. It only takes the smallest of correctives to take care of that tiny minority that wants to disrupt the community.

People who can give themselves every day. They're the people that I admire, they're real people.

Hares can gambol over the body of a dead lion.

Passion for a goal doesn't guarantee success, but without it, you can't even begin.

Heed not the night; A summer lodge amid the wild is mine, 'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'Tis mantled by the vine.