That's what I love about Michael Douglas' performance in Wonder Boys, because I feel like he surprises audiences that know him from very different roles in his other work.

I had a checkered early career, for sure, with a lot of very unhappy experiences where pictures got taken away, re-cut, re-titled... all the nightmares one hears about.

What you care about [movie] is whether it's moving you, or whether you're caught up in it.

Hollywood, of course, is the city of illusion.

You can dress it up, but it comes down to the fact that a movie is only as good as its script.

Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.

Self-awareness and self-esteem. Those aren't female issues, those are human issues.

Put simply, there are many people who want to make movies and very few opportunities for them to do it.

I grew up as a reader as well as a movie-lover, so many of the novelists I admired - and so many of the great filmmakers I loved - were self-taught.

Consequently, it's so gratifying to then make a picture that's successful and gives you leverage to have better circumstances than you've ever had, before the next time out.

Consequently, their school [film-school ] was the school of life, and it was very much reflected in their work.

Nobody is born with a style or a voice. We don't out of the womb knowing who we are. In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. We learn by copying.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

It's no secret that in New York during the last 30 years there has been a tragic exodus from the churches into materialism, secularism and humanism.

When adults wage war, children perish.

I can't just decide myself what's being built. Someone decides what they want, then I work for them.

When our brain feels too weak to deal with our opponent's objections, our heart answers by casting suspicion on their underlying motives.

All we have to do is get out and vote, while it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House.

I'm really going to do my homework. I'm going to be down there on the practice tee finding out if a guy's wife beat him up the night before, important stuff like that. Stuff that people want to know.

Be guided by the axiom: There are no limits to the ability to contribute on the part of a properly selected, well-trained, appropriately supported, and, above all, committed person.