Filmmaking, like any other art, is a very profound means of human communication; beyond the professional pleasure of succeeding or the pain of failing, you do want your film to be seen, to communicate itself to other people.

When you have people like Casey [Affleck] and Michelle Williams and they want to do more takes you don't say, "Sorry, that's it." And I also don't like to say, "It's fine, it's great." Unless it's clearly there.

I still haven't quite caught on to the idea of writing without dialogue. I like writing dialogue, and there's nothing wrong with dialogue in movies.

The world is really heading in a very dangerous direction, it becomes that much more valuable and important to go to the movies and see human beings that are human beings.

I trust my judgment when I think it's boring, dull, tepid and not interesting. That's important to listen to. And the same on the set. That's a little easier because you can see it in front of you and you can just see how great they are and you know you have something wonderful when they do something wonderful.

I often find myself writing about people taking care of each other, or trying to. And often seem to write about situations that are too big for the characters.

There's something about the impact of a big screen that means something to me, even though I realize almost every film is fated to be seen for a year in theaters, and then forever after on television.