There are a few critics overseas, and occasionally a critic will write an astute analysis of the movie. There is value in reading critics that actually have something intelligent to say, but the journalistic community lives in a world of sound bites and literary commerce: selling newspapers, selling books, and they do that simply by trashing things. They don't criticize or analyze them. They simply trash them for the sake of a headline, or to shock people to get them to buy whatever it is they're selling.

I've always tried to be aware of what I say in my films, because all of us who make motion pictures are teachers - teachers with very loud voices.

But having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences - is very, very important to actually being able to make movies.

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.

You can't do it unless you can imagine it.

Never tell me the odds!

The secret to film is that it's an illusion.