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

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

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

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.

In the fall of leaves, In the hustle of breeze, In the curve of streams, I foresee, Nature keeps more concealed, Than it lets us peep!

I lived to be forgotten because I'd forgotten how to live

My doctor said to me afterwards, 'When you were ill you behaved like a true philosopher. Every time you came to yourself you made a joke.' I never had a compliment that pleased me more.

He looks up through blood smeared lips.

People always say to me, "What if it doesn't work?" If it doesn't work, we redouble our effort. We're not going to cry like a bunch of babies. We're going to redouble our effort.

The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.

My focus is not on solving nature's deeper mysteries. It is on using nature's deeper mysteries to solve important societal problems.

The King is in his Tower, eating bread and honey. The Breakers in the basement, making all the money.

I've been trying to grow up some myself, in my heart, and it's happening quick and I feel good about it, and I want that to come out in the music.

It's not the world that distresses you but how you relate to it.