The purpose of fiction is to combat loneliness.

I love watching all sorts of different types of movies, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily movies I want to be making. I'm not sitting around saying, "Man, I'd really love to direct a western." That's just not something I'm probably going to do. But, I'm just looking to work on things that both feel professionally exciting and personally relevant.

I really like to travel when I write. Something about seeing new things and being in new cultures and environments provokes new thoughts in your head.

There's something touching about a kid who's reading a book that's printed on actual paper. I think that anything that kids start reading, within reason, can lead to other discoveries.

But, yeah, I'm really happy when I'm writing. When I'm being creative and when I have something that I can put down. You know, if you go out and you overhear a conversation or you have a thought, you have a receptacle to go home and say, 'Oh, this would be great in this script.' Your antenna's out in a different way, and I love that time.

I learned a lesson which I didn't heed: Don't put yourself in your movies. It's too much.

We're like a gardener with a hose and our attention is water - we can water flowers or we can water weeds.