The trappings of a religious cult tend to fall into candlelit ceremonies and robes and group chanting and singing and prayer.

You know, when you're isolated on set for like a month, people like to get rowdy.

The way brainwashing works is subtle and takes a long time.

What I learned from directing, I learned from soccer, where it's like a coach-player relationship.

When people leave cults, they don't know that they left a cult.

When I hire actors I believe in their abilities.

When I was a kid, I was afraid of large group of conforming people.

When you write, no matter what, it ends up personal.

You can't write something to please someone.

A big fear of working with an actor that's never been a lead in a film before is that you're going to have to work really hard to pull a performance out of her.

In editing, it's amazing how you choose the in and out points. What you cut on is everything for creating tension. It's amazing how expanding a shot by five seconds can just ruin the tension.

The only day I remember of my parents' marriage was the day my dad walked out. As I stood there at five years old, with my older sister and younger brother, I knew that he was gone.

Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

We have come to think of art and work as incompatible, or at least independent categories and have for the first time in history created an industry without art.

The secret of art is love.

How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?

Do you want to live in a world where a man lies about calories?

Was [Adolf Hitler] rude to me? Never. He was always polite and well-mannered.

Philosophy will tell you what to say, eloquence will tell you how to say it

Where the hand of tyranny is long we do not see the lips of men open with laughter.

Happiness is the joy we feel striving after our potential.