Limitations force you to find the essence of what you want to say, which is one of the most important things to know for an artist.

I'm not going to spend two years on a film or four years on an opera if I don't feel like I can put my own self into it. That doesn't mean it has to be about myself.

When we were kids, you picked up a little paper and put it on a stick; and when you waved it back and forth, you understood the power of air underneath the wings. In that way, a child begins to understand abstraction, poetry, metaphor, symbolism. You play with the materials you have and use your imagination to make them into something else. That what's so sad about having everything on a little screen - it's not physical and dimensional, and that seems backward.

I believe that if you really have a strong idea, you can say, "What do you think? Let's see how my idea plays off yours."

We're really having a problem right now in our culture. I haven't seen one movie lately in which the story and visuals have been equally good.

People will justify whatever for a good cause.

I don't want to sound like a heroic woman or to seem full of myself, but I do have a core of trust that I'll figure things out and find my way. And if whatever I try is not a good experience, even that is a good experience. If something turns out lousy, it's interesting.