The biggest risk is to take no risk at all

That for me is what intrigues me the most about feature films. It's not like the little kind of esoteric projects that you and your friends get but how do you make something that has a universal appeal. Those are the movies that intrigue me the most.

Just trying to live our lives and figuring out how to turn that into art. It's tough to say that the art was premeditated. Instead you just focused on living. 'How do I want to live? What do I want to do?' Then you figured out how to make that into art.

The most dangerous thing you can do in life is play it safe.

To make a movie, and we can call it a movie or we can call it a piece of art, to make a movie that has that much mass appeal what it is? What is it that makes kids in China want to see that movie [ 'Avatar'] and makes my dad want to see that movie.

As a guiding principle, life shrinks and life expands in direct proportion to your willingness to assume risk.

I always see the filming as basically going to the grocery store and buying a bunch of ingredients and that's about as far from having a dinner as you can possibly be. Then editing is the cooking, the preparation of the meal and if you don't edit it you've just got a pile of raw meat.