Movies, as evidenced by a chorus of protesting and celebrating Americans, influence broader trends.

I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker; I just didn't have the resources to do that.

We who are in the arts are at the risk of being in a popularity contest rather than a profession. If that fact causes you despair . . . pick another profession. Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities . . . We have to create our own standards of discipline.

Making your life is ultimately an extraordinarily creative endeavor.

I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.

I never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.

Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.