I almost forgot what it's like to be proud of my government.

I start to get fixated on a story and a character and an idea, and at a certain point, I really want to do it. It's a compulsion to explore a specific thing, as opposed to a compulsion to direct, generally speaking.

I don't smoke and I don't want to smoke. I am not a fan of gratuitous smoking in films.

Instead of telling the world what you're eating for breakfast, you can use social networking to do something that's meaningful.

Duality is not a story. Duality is just a complexity.

I'm fascinated by the ways in which people express themselves, because their responses are often counter to what they're actually feeling. Like when they're frightened, they tend to freeze. When they're angry, it doesn't always come out as volume. There are wonderful contradictions in the way that people express their emotions.

But work that's got real substance does make people feel, "There's someone else out there who relates to my experience, or who just helped me understand my own experience a little bit better." And I think that's still got enormous value.