The older you get, the less seriously you take criticism. I've gotten to a point now where I ignore it completely. It's just not relevant to me anymore.

Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells.

The sciences are the 'how,' and the humanities are the 'why' - why are we here, why do we believe in the things we believe in. I don't think you can have the 'how' without the 'why.'

There wasn't anything in my life that was going to stop me from making movies.

I was a terrible student in high school and the thing that the auto accident did - and it happened just as I graduated, so I was at this sort of crossroads - but it made me apply myself more, because I realized more than anything else what a thin thread we hang on in life, and I really wanted to make something out of my life.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

Even in high school I was very interested in history - why people do the things they do. As a kid I spent a lot of time trying to relate the past to the present.