Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.

I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing.

I think we can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment they they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to communicate. It's the very moment that they have to dig deeper than the surface to find words, and at the same time, it's a moment when they want to communicate very badly. They're digging deep and projecting out at the same time.

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

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

Some people study a text very deeply. The people are my text. I study their words and what their words sound like, over and over again. When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country. It doesn't matter how educated they are. By living in the world and living their experiences, they bring extraordinary truths. I try to do those truths justice.

I mean, I think a healthy country is a country where people are healthy physically, and a smart country is a country where people are educated.