I don't think you make documentary films to get your country house. If you're trying to gamble on that, you've very foolish.

I think all of us, looking back on our careers and our lives, there'll probably be a "road not taken" that we'll regret and mourn. Certainly, artists will always feel that way, especially when the path taken was more commercial than the one not taken.

The Ancient Romans did not regard acts of genius to emanate from within an individual - but rather saw it as a collaboration between a spirit of creativity and a human being. So it could be that sometimes an individual had that power, that divine inspiration, or other times not. The spirit might have moved on to some other lucky soul.

I guess what I get excited about when I'm thinking about projects is that toothy, complex area of goodness and badness and the gray areas of human behavior and existence.

It has a lot to do with just sort of trust in the relationship that builds between the filmmaker and the subject. There are some people who will never be relaxed in front of a camera, and in some ways that's my failing as a filmmaker to not put them at ease. It's also a function of time, and if you have that type of time.

I think the combination of genius and celebrity, in the case of Bobby Fischer, was a dangerous cocktail.

When your entire life is focused around one goal and one goal only, and you have no other pursuits, it enables you to achieve enormous mastery.