Naming a baby is an act of poetry, for many people the only creative moment of their lives.

I can't think of anyone I admire who isn't fuelled by self-doubt. It's an essential ingredient. It's the grit in the oyster.

I am interested in the gap between what people say and what they think - the undiscovered world of people's lives. Lives of quiet desperation.

I think the collision between the First and Third world is going to become more and more conspicuous. It's the big cliff that we've all got to climb.

I've always argued, unsuccessfully, that there's no point in giving money to the arts unless you educate people in them.

What we hold in our heads - our memory, our feelings, our thoughts, our sense of our own history - is the sum of our humanity.

Resolution, like responsibility, is a product of ownership, and kids can't resolve a conflict until they figure out how they contributed to it.

I envy the happiness of others... I envy the sense of belonging... I seem always to be remaking myself.

If the arts are held up solely as a means of social insight, fantasy is denied the chance to be commonplace and reality the chance to be exotic.

You can't be minimalist as a director until you have acquired the experience and confidence to say no.

If you practice hard, you can win every battle.

Pray always and seek guidance from the Creator.

Is this an ego high or a peaceful high?

An explorer of the universe is sexier than a musician.

never was there a thoroughly noble nature without some romance in it.

My commitment originated in my own story and my own relationship to violence.

An injury may prove a blessing.

We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive.

Am I ambitious? I used to be afraid of that word but now I think ambition is a good thing.