If you look at the best-seller list for American fiction, they're all sequels to detective stories or stories about hunting serial killers. That's what's called American fiction these days.

I don't know that I can define fear. But one of the sources of fear is holding up some sort of model life that doesn't exist and feeling like you're far away from it.

It's better to be known by six people for something you're proud of than to be known by sixty million for something you're not.

I'm not a big fan of the post-Armageddon stories, where Denzel Washington is walking around in a torn coat.

I can't not put humor in a book.

How many people didn't get a part who would have been better than the person who got the part? Thousands.

In the course of my movies, the financing and the releasing were always the tough part. Because I loved the creative, I loved the writing, I loved the making of it. Because I guess, I never had the giant blockbuster, I never got that sort of ease for the next one. So the next one was always, "how am I going to do this?" And that thing was sort of always the thing that made me a little chickenshit to go into the next one. The writing of it was great and the making of it was great, but how am I going to release this thing and am I going to find a studio?