Early rejections are really tough, especially when all of your friends who you went to school with now have legitimate jobs, are getting married, having children, buying real estate, being adults. And you're still trying to figure out how to make a living doing the thing you think you love, but you're not even sure yet because you haven't even done it. It was a long road of risk and treachery.

That's the funny thing about cinema, it is an intellectual medium, but it's also sort of anti-intellectual.

I always feel like the editing room is like coming into the kitchen. What kind of a meal do you make from there? It can be anything.

When I go into a pitch room and I'm pitching something with a writing partner, everybody tends to look at the guy, even if I'm doing a lot of the talking.

I wasn't actually very naturally good at economics. My brain doesn't work very well, in terms of mathematics.

I learned from my parents the idea that, if you are devoted enough and you want to study something enough, you can really teach yourself anything.

The problem is if you play enough of parts in films that are sort of more financial products than anything or films in which the girl is a thankless, thoughtless, underwritten character along the way, you're no longer the person who had something fresh or vital to offer. I think it really does start to diminish some part of you, to put yourself through things you don't really want to be doing.