Most of the guys like sticking to the script and doing just what's written. If they're exploring, they're exploring ways of doing the script.

We love the quality in a person, who can see themselves clearly and isn't ashamed of who they are.

What's great is when you're shooting at the same hotel you're living in, you finish shooting, put your stuff down, take an elevator and go to bed.

You're just always looking for something new. That's why a lot of people bounce between TV and movies. You have the ability to try something else.

You're often trying to fix a script by shooting it.

What you realize is that a lot of actors want to be directed. They're there to do the best job they can for the director. They have a lot of questions, and your job is to have answers.

You'll never meet a nicer person, let alone a nicer actress, than Mary Steenburgen.

We always feel safest, I think, around the most dangerous person who's on your side, more than the nice good person who's on your side.

It's so damn hard to write a great historical mystery based on fact. It's not for lack of trying.

I want to do whatever I possibly can to be as good as I can be.

I try to hire people who will challenge and have the humility to be challenged - people who have basically good values.

Creative ability is often mistakenly attributed to inborn talent. It is about all the ability to connect one thing with another.

I grew up in a very racially integrated place called Pottstown. It was an agricultural / industrial town which has since become a suburb of Philadelphia. I grew up basically in a black neighborhood.

True Love Isn't Hearts & Flowers. It's Blood & Guts & Bouquets Of Barbed Wire

No matter how many people care about you, she thought, if you can't be open with them about who you truly are, you're still alone.

I did a book in 1996, an overview of black history. In that process I became more aware of a lot of the black inventors of the 19th century.

All I'm saying is, where relationships are concerned, don't confuse length with strength.

I don't rock chains our ancestors did it for us