When I found myself in that situation - that actors are like children, I tried to be successful. And when it worked and I figured out how to communicate that things were good - or at least okay - then I felt pleased.

Failure is a badge of honor. It means you risked failure. And if you don’t risk failure, you’re never going to do anything that’s different from what you’ve already done or what somebody else has done.

And then to see the whole movie, you're pretty much waiting until the end of production. And the major lifting in terms of editing and all that stuff is done before you shoot the movie. That's an unusual way to work.

I think that people have expectations of themselves and other people that are based on these fictions that are presented to them as the way human life and relationships could be, in some sort of weird, ideal world, but they never are. So you're constantly being shown this garbage and you can't get there.

I like for people to figure things out for themselves. It's not like I have the right answer, but if I have a visceral reaction to something, I'm sure that other people will, too.

Writing is a journey into the unknown.

I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays. It's more that I wanted to see what it would be like if I didn't have to collaborate with anybody, to have a sense of purity of the thing from beginning to end. I liked doing it. It's really different from writing. Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing.