When men create movies about femme fatales, it really is always about how that female can destroy that male. It's not really about what's happening on the interior of that female.

Cinema can transform pain and trauma into something beautiful.

What I like about the '60s movies was that they were about women. They were telling women's stories. I think a lot of movies don't tell women's stories anymore.

I've always loved movies dealing with the terror of a woman who doesn't really know her husband and finds out that he's a monster. It's one of my favorite plots.

Men's requirements of women are impossible and ridiculous and so destructive.

I feel like that's how women feel in a way. You can get paranoid because everyone actually is a conspiracy to diminish your power.

Anything anybody's used, a comb, a lock of hair, a drop of sweat, anything that comes from somebody's body has incredible magical power.

Every time I get criticism from people, I learn from it and what to do the next time so there are fewer misconceptions. I'm continuing to be socialized as a woman, but also as a filmmaker.

The more that I see the sexism and misogyny that's coming at me from every direction, the less I think my films have anything to do with sexploitation.

I think glamour is a female thing. I don't think that's a male fantasy. I think glamour's a female fantasy.

We women have gained so many more things, but we lost that kind of sexual power, the glamour power. We still love women who can still do that in culture.

Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.

The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I would be honest.

Just as human activity is upsetting Earth's carbon cycle, our actions are altering the water cycle.

I am an enemy of the State. But isn't everyone?

Compose with utter freedom and edit with utter discipline.

I was born and raised in the Bay Area. It's the place I got a deep, deep affection for.

I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.

I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me.

Your body is a form of energy slowed down to assume the appearance of mass. And the mind directs the energy that determines the form.

Were I so tall as to reach the pole or grasp the ocean at a span, I must be measured by my soul. The mind is the standard of the man.