Select only things to steal that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent

I even think the commercial element of new American directors is really fertile right now. There are a lot of filmmakers with very particular visions, like Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson and P.T. Anderson and Alexander Payne and Peter Sollett and Harmony Korine and Vincent Gallo. At least they're making films that they choose to make, and they're on their own. That's positive to me. This is not a dead period for American cinema at all.

Those of us who make films try to make something that we're feeling and that we would like. Then we just hope an audience responds the same way. It's very important to have the electrical circuit made, but I don't have control over how people feel when they flip the switch. So the whole idea of marketing research and test screenings is just foreign to me.

My films are about the little things that happen between people that are sometimes far more valuable and insightful than the big dramatic things that happen.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.

When I hear the word independent I reach for my revolver. At this point, what the hell does that mean? The English Patient is an independent film... Hootie and the Blowfish are alternative music. I'm the Queen of Denmark. I don't know what it means anymore.

You are the accumulations of your experiences at any given point. And when you express something those things come out. The thing is I hate seeing my films when I'm done with them, so I don't look back as a chart of my life, but I leave it as a kind of chart. Though, it is a photograph, captured.