It's nice to work with Hollywood because there is never any question of resources put at your disposal to make a film as long as it is the right thing to do.

I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter.

Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?

For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.

Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line.

Never make a promise - you may have to keep it.

Initially with The Butcher Boy, there was this kid growing up in this strange, weird environment that I remember from when I was a kid. And Patrick's vision was so complete there.

Well, Company of Wolves was about that literally, about fairy tales.

My conception of it was that in a normal film you have a story with different movements that program, develop, go a little bit off the trunk, come back, and end.

If movies have to satisfy every possible quadrant before they're even made, they're dull. You only get great things when people overreach themselves.

There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?

There are still very few laws against thinking, although I am sure they're working hard on that in Washington.

If you don't win and the terrorists win, Syria wouldn't exist anymore.

Jesus became mortal to give you immortality; and today, through Him, you can be free.

There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.

What is subversive today, will almost certainly be patriotic tomorrow.

The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours.

No matter how beautiful the theory, one irritating fact can dismiss the entire formulism, so it has to be proven.

Every woman is a rebel.

Women are like those blinkin' little Greek islands, places to call at but not to stay.

Bobby Cox had the biggest influence in my career and probably the second- or third-biggest influence in my life.