Once I had a potentially heart attack-inducing eight double espressos in one day. I think my assistant secretly swaps my coffees for decaf as she doesn't want me to die of caffeine overdose.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

To me the director’s job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.

You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

Remember, when we're lost in a story, we're not passively reading about something that's happening to someone else.

Literature endures like the universal spirit, And its breath becomes a part of the vitals of all men.

it is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair. At least, one eats better that way. And morality is more dependent on the state of one's stomach than of one's nation

For how long are you going to continue making excuses? When have you ever solved anything through excuses?

You should've told me Tess, " I murmured against her hair. "You helped me find my humanness but you took it away with your lies.

We have to build bridges that are stronger than the bombs that other people might throw

I have the endorsement of the Sierra Club, and I'm very proud of that.

I think if I learned anything in graduate school, it was to not drool around other actors who would normally make you drool.

I think you go through different phases when you do albums, and I think that they change according to where you are in your life and what you're inspired by at the moment.

I like to keep my private stuff pretty vague.