It's really hard to know why certain artists become famous and others don't.

Language can be used to so many diverse ends. It can be used to clarify and, of course, it can be used to obfuscate, confuse, evade.

I've had people turn me down. Not all that many, but certainly it happens.

There is only one direction. (Down.) There is only one color. (Black.) And there is only one number (Zero.)

A lot of the themes of my movies, the actual stories, come from tabloid stories.

I believe we have two ideas about how movies are made in our heads. Idealizations. Platonic ideals. One of them is of a movie that is completely uncontrolled, and another is a movie that is completely controlled. The auteur theory vs. cinéma vérité.

A lot of the distinctions that we make between drama and documentary are spurious. We're deeply confused about these issues. About the difference between the two, about where documentary ends and drama begins.