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

You know, veterans come home and they may not be bipolar, but after they've been through a war with PTSD or a head injury, their families have a handful when they come home.

The investigation of consciousness has come to be regarded suspiciously by most smart people and by most scientists. That's a legacy that began with the Inquisition, which considered non-Christian spiritual inquiry as blasphemous.

The Fighter was about a family struggling to overcome and fighting each other sometimes, and I went back and rewrote this script which I had written for my son initially because my son has mood disorder.

That's just how I see things. I think things that are the most dramatic or tragic can also look the most ridiculous and funny. That's part of being human.

Life just happens the way it's supposed to happen. It delivers you to where it delivers you.

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.