Before I started to make films, I didn't give much thought to the way the characters were physically positioned in the story world.

As the son of Holocaust survivors, this is life - you're put in a corner, and you have to get out. I believe that you can always get out.

Generally, all my life, I have had strong friction with life - I was a problematic soldier, I was kicked out of the army, I was in fights. There was something about writing that was a way of experimenting with this emotion.

When you work on a graphic novel or a film with people you've been together through a lot and you've exposed your secrets and weaker sides to each other.

In America, where writers are preoccupied with the craft of writing, I always try to introduce this concept of the badly written good story. Turning the hierarchy around and putting passion on top and not craft, because when you just focus on craft, you can write something that is very sterile.

I think that any authentic feeling one has of life should be a feeling of defeat. It's a losing game. You're going to die. Civilization is going to end. Our society is in decline, and we should feel OK about it because Roman society was in decline and before it the Assyrian one was, and they disappeared off this earth and we will disappear too.

I think that becoming a parent kind of made me try to be more responsible. And it made me much more stressful.