Life has all of these contradictory feelings and contradictory results. People spend their whole lives struggling to get what they think they want, and even if they get it, they find that it's either not what they wanted, or it comes with so many unwanted consequences. We're always shut off from pure joy.

I feel a big obligation to the audience, almost in a moral sense, to say something useful. If I'm going to spend a year of my life on these things, I want something that I feel that strongly about.

As much as I liked acting for its playfulness and the reward of hearing big laughs wash over you on a stage, I always felt I should do something that I could control.

I'm sure that the liability for doing a tracheotomy would be tremendous. You make one mistake, and it's over. Most doctors won't even do it.

If you're doing six takes, instead of doing six variations on the same words, why not just throw out the words and make them up as you go along, if you're comfortable with it? It gives the movies a slightly rangier feeling, and more of an accidental feel, but it also makes them edgier.

I look for the meaning in what's funny, and I look for what's funny about things that are meaningful to me.

How one handles success or failure is determined by their early childhood.