It's a great luxury for me to be able to write on the films that I direct, and kind of a nice thing to be able to write enough to get credit, which is difficult for a director.

The rule of thumb for a director or producer - which prevents them from just sticking their names on everything - is that you have to contribute substantially more than 50 percent of the character dialogue and story.

Whatever bliss we think we're going to find, we may find it in brief flashes, fleeting moments that come and go. There's an impossibility to nailing down any good feeling.

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.

I never work just to work. It's some combination of laziness and self-respect.

The times change, and to the extent that comedy captures the spirit of the times, it will enjoy success.

It doesn't take any longer to improvise 10 takes than it takes to shoot 10 takes of the same thing. It turns out to be just as responsible from a business point of view as anything else.