The working-class folks and the poor, and those normal people living their lives out in the world without the glitter and the fanfare. There is a lot to learn from them.

That's what I love about music...all these banalities suddenly turn into these beautiful, effervescent pearls.

Nothing anyone says in a bar is true.

I became really aware that when you're making a movie, you're making it three times. You're making it when you're writing it. You're making it when you're shooting it. And then you're remaking it again when you're editing it.

I remember riding my bike down the boardwalk with nowhere to go and looking at the girls. It was really innocent.

Some of my favorite scenes aren't in the movie. Because you, at some point, realize that your responsibility as director is purely to the story. It's not to your pleasure.

I haven't had such an overwhelmingly positive response as I have from The Normal Heart directly to me. And it's a blessing. If this is it, if I have a piano dropped on me tomorrow, then I would go down thinking, 'You know what, I did okay as far as my career goes, because that's a gift. That's rare.'