It's a little bit hard to have personal things subject to public scrutiny, and it's a pressure that other people aren't under, but then they're under a lot of pressures that we're not under.

Chicago my favourite American city. I'm very much a typical midwesterner, and I don't think the condition is curable.

There's no worse feeling in the world than realizing the play you've directed doesn't work.

You can't work in the movies. Movies are all about lighting. Very few filmmakers will concentrate on the story. You get very little rehearsal time, so anything you do onscreen is a kind of speed painting.

I've permitted myself to learn and to fail with some regularity. And that is probably the one thing I was given, and that I'm still grateful for.

I probably have more female friends than any man I've ever met. What I like about them is that almost always they're generally mentally tougher, and they're better listeners, and they're more capable of surviving things. And most of the women that I like have a haunted quality - they're sort of like women who live in a haunted house all by themselves.

I don't want a trillion-dollar empire to run.