Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I'd start writing poems about suicide.

I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.

Before I moved into the mainstream of American movies, I wrote a script as an experiment. I wanted to get very far away from the clichés about the three-act play - structure, development.

I didn't know that my sister was really my mother until I was thirty-seven years old. But life has taught me that there have been a lot of things that I didn't know.

The camera photographs what's there.

If I were an Arab-American, I would insist on being profiled. This is not the time for civil rights. There are larger issues for Americans.

I'm a New Wave baby, so I got very stimulated by foreign film.