A lot of the issues of rhythm in film are found in the editing because it's very rare that any sequence is the sequence that is shot.

Anybody whose mind is functioning at all can't be content with the way the world works.

My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.

Unfortunately, I never played an instrument. I can't blame my parents, but I wish I had had music lessons. It's odd because I think I have a good sense of rhythm, as they say in some fields. But I don't know anything about music.

Of course there's conscious manipulation! Everything about a movie is manipulation ... If you like it, it's an interpretation. If you don't like it, it's a lie - but everything about these movies is a distortion."

I'm interested in ordinary experience, and regardless of the precise definition of ordinary, and I've found that in so-called ordinary experience, there is as much comedy, tragedy, sadness, as there is in great drama. And I don't invent it, I recognize it.

Even if I know I'm going to go to a church, I don't know what the minister's going to say.