People like Chris Nolan are shooting isolated sequences in IMAX. Those cameras are the size of a Volkswagen.

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.

In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues.

Spermicide' sort of rhymes with 'pesticide', yet you wouldn't put a load of DDT in you know where to kill you know what, now would you?

Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination.

My dad was great. He was very droll, very dry.

God bless you and utterly satisfy your heart...with Himself.

Actors are very generous.

There are many women with children under five who want to work and who lack affordable, high-quality child care.

Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor.

I wanted to play the Apollo Theater because I didn't think I was going to be on the earth long.

I've always said that the word 'genius,' especially in Hollywood, is way overused.