And if you can come through that and still have some connection to your joy you felt when you were a child that's a very mature kind of a joy that I find inspiring. And Jennifer Lowrence has all that in her, and I've watched her have to go through it even in the last few years.

I think what makes compelling fiction or cinema is when you're basically taking the most intense moments of experience and you're creating a song or a narrative out of it.

You know when you're hungry and excited and you feel humble about it? I like that. In the past, when things were not clear, I think I wasn't ... I didn't have my feet on the ground as much, maybe, 10 years ago. So I just feel like this is a good place to be now, to feel that you want to tell stories from this place and that you're excited to tell stories from this place because you know what you love. I know what I love right now.

The great lesson about filmmaking is never take "no" for an answer, especially if you have a lot of passion and inspiration to do something.

What do we have in life, really? If we're lucky we get to a certain age, and we have each other. We have the food we like. We have our crazy little rituals. And we have each other.

I think audiences deserve the benefit of the doubt. I prefer to be surprised by them rather then just assume they'll react negatively to any new idea.

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