The way I write is very much without kind of a goal. I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive.

I don't think I've had a lonely moment in my life.

I have a lot of anxiety about medical things for example. I don't think I'm particularly good at it, but I'd had the practice when I went into shooting Synecdoche. It can be somewhat gratifying, too, because I don't have that relationship with other adults where I need to comfort them or they come to me for that.

I've kind of come to the conclusion that what passes for realism in movies has nothing to do with reality and that my stuff is more realistic than that.

Writing is a journey into the unknown.

I graduated from college in 1980.

The difference between a movie and a play is that the production you end up with is the production. If a movie that I spent time on turns out to be crap, it's never going to be made again.