If you don't think a film looks good then that is just a reflection of how bad the artist was that was using the paint that is really good.

The greatest story commandment is: Make me care.

Use what you know. Draw from it. It doesnt always mean plot or fact. It means capturing a truth from your experiencing it, expressing values you personally feel deep down in your core.

The best stories infuse wonder.

Don't give [the audience] four; give them two plus two.

I never think about the audience. If someone gives me a marketing report, I throw it away.

Loneliness is, I think, people's biggest fear, whether they are conscious of it or not.

Frankly, there isn't anyone you couldn't learn to love once you've heard their story.

That's what great art does - it inspires other artists to do great art, and that's what it should do.

Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty.

Change is fundamental in story. If things go static, stories die.

You can live your whole life not realizing that what you're looking for is right in front of you.

If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived. (The Inconvenient Messiah, BYU Speeches, Feb 15, 1982)

The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.

Memory is... similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.

On The Others, very atmospheric and probably mysterious is how I would say it felt to be on the set. It felt just a little uneasy, the atmosphere that we were trying to capture.

I've got to get stop getting fired like this. People will start to think I'm a drifter.

I pay about a third in taxes, I give away about a third, and I follow the law.

Even if I'm sad, dancing is a way to let stuff out.

I'm making the art for me first. I'm making it because these are the pictures I want to see. I'm making pictures that don't yet exist.

We must become acquainted with our emotional household: we must see our feelings as they actually are, not as we assume they are. This breaks their hypnotic and damaging hold on us.