Everyone has expectations. You just don't want to have them dashed, so you're quiet about them.

My whole thing is that I want to explore why you read books, what's the purpose of reading, and maybe that it's not that cool to hate something just because it's popular.

No matter how dark things may get in a story, I feel it's the responsibility of the storyteller to leave the audience with at least a shred of hope.

One man's uplift is another man's sentimental hooey.

I learned to choose my battles. Sometimes I let my producer deal with something that I didn't want to deal with.

I think the word 'earnest' kind of has a negative connotation on some level. I think one of the things that's happened is that being cynical is somehow conflated with being sophisticated. I think that's problematic, to say the least.

One thing I'm most proud of, in my movies, is that I think the performances are super-strong, but that's not all me. I think part of it is casting appropriately.