I got a nomination for director, which means the world to me; it's just the most exciting thing for me and my family. You do the good hard work, and the rest of it is something you shouldn't get too caught up in, but when it happens - boy! I respect it.

The endings for all my characters seem sufficiently human and messy for me to feel comfortable with them. In some ways they have only moved an inch, but sometimes an inch is a great distance.

That's the most beautiful thing that I like about boxing: you can take a punch. The biggest thing about taking a punch is your ego reacts and there's no better spiritual lesson than trying to not pay attention to your ego's reaction.

If you just work on your craft hard, that's your only hope of doing anything worthwhile.

As people, [my parents were] very colorful, very talkative, passionate, they really loved each other. But that also meant heated, it meant there was a lot of drama in the house. Which is good for a filmmaker, I think.

When most people turn on their TVs, they don't expect a frank discussion of philosophical ideas in their practical context. Or any context.

The gift of life is the gift to suffer sometimes and to embrace it, heartbreak and all.