I'm not sure that I'm really relevant as a director anymore. Or as a writer, either, to tell you the truth.

If you look at a character as a mountain over there that you have to climb, then I think you've lost 50 percent of the air.

The ones that work out really and ones that become something to the audience, those are the most important people.

Acting is playing - it's actually going out on a playground with the other kids and being in the game, and I need that. Writing satisfies that part of myself that longs to sit in my room and dream.

I am fairly embraced by the Hollywood community, and I love making movies and I love acting, but I'm not real crazy about the Hollywood system. So the fact that they embrace me is a shock to me because I tell them to kiss my ass all the time. I don't understand why they haven't thrown me out on my ear. The other thing is I don't participate much. I have very few friends within the movie community. I hang out with some guys I've known forever. They're all broke and eat me out of house and home. But I stay home mostly and I don't go to the parties. Maybe that preserves me.

Well I loved Little League; so all the memories are pretty fond but I broke my thumb. That wasn't a lot of fun. I think probably the first time I pitched [I started out as a first baseman] and the first game I pitched in Little League, I struck out 10 batters. I had a curve ball a little early [laughs]. You're not really supposed to have one when you're 12, but I did, so I first game I struck out 10 batters. That's possibly my fondest memory.

Somewhere along the line we stopped believing we could do anything. And if we don't have our dreams, we have nothing.