My grandmother was a huge influence on me and the fact that there was this very strong, rather formidable presence of women in my life has been an enormous value.

I have always believed that there is a need for life-affirming films.

You know, you lose a lot of social skills if you’re a writer. You spend too long alone. And it’s forced me to address that.

Once you start to realize that a film is the sum of its editing, then editing is the thing you're always looking at.

The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.

The only lesson to extract from any civil war is that it's pointless and futile and ugly, and that there is nothing glamorous or heroic about it. There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic.

Look at it this way: if you write the novel of 'Cold Mountain,' it costs exactly the same to produce and market as a novel set in a room. If you make the film, the disparity of costs is huge.

No studio in Hollywood wanted 'Cold Mountain.' None. No one wanted 'Ripley,' no one wanted 'The English Patient.' That tells you there isn't really an appetite for ambitious movie-making out there.

I don't hold with the notion that only bad books make good movies.

[Abbas Kiarostami] is a great artist and a poet. I sometimes think that if Samuel Beckett made films, he'd make them like Kiarostami makes them.

Betrayals during war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace.

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

As for me horror is the genre which makes my life more interesting, mysteries my life to be something like a riddle which people go and hard go outside...But the music build my personality!

Our job, as writers is to do our jobs.

The joy of living, its beauty, is all bound up in the fact that life can surprise you.

I don't think people in power have the potential to do anything like that to me. I feel as though as long as our music is available, folks are going to hear it.

The notion of infinity is our greatest friend; it is also the greatest enemy of our peace of mind.

When workers can get and equal return for less effort, workers make less effort

I can wear a sexy dress to any red carpet event. My wedding is my chance to go all the way and wear a princess silhouette.

My hips don't lie and I don't lie either!

We remove mountains, and make seas our smooth highway; nothing can resist us. We war with rude Nature; and, by our resistless engines, come off always victorious, and loaded with spoils.