Never again will I allow our political self-interest to deter us from doing what we know to be morally right. Atrocity and terror are not political weapons. And to those who would use them, your day is over. We will never negotiate. We will no longer tolerate and we will no longer be afraid. It's your turn to be afraid.

I think American films right now are suffering from an excess of scale. Lots of movies we're seeing now are more akin to video games than stories about human life and relationships. Twelve- to 20-year-olds are maybe the largest economic force in the US movie business. I'm not a very nostalgic person - but I enjoy a good story.

I was never that much a focus of interest in my career. I'm aware of that now, which doesn't give me a lot of pleasure.

You keep on going until you get it as close to being right as the time and patience of others will allow.

You always have to know what the ambition of the scene is, what the purpose of that scene is in the telling of the story overall, so that you're there to support the story.

Sometimes I try to improve the language, the lines, or the delivery, but I don't ad-lib because I think that makes it really hard for everybody else involved.

I knew that there was an aspect to this story that was beyond the typical and that it was something very important about America, about our culture, and about bringing a story to a new generation that perhaps didn't know the details of it, (and) hadn't had the visceral experience that this film is [42].