There’s nothing better than discovering, to your own astonishment, what you’re meant to do. It’s like falling in love.

I have never understood people dividing things into dramas and comedies.

Any good movie is filled with secrets.

Directing is mystifying. It's a long, long, skid on an icy road, and you do the best you can trying to stay on the road... If you're still here when you come out of the spin, it's a relief. But you've got to have the terror if you're going to do anything worthwhile.

Take off all your clothes and walk down the street waving a machete and firing an Uzi, and terrified citizens will phone the police and report, There's a naked person outside!

Jewish introspection and Jewish humor is a way of surviving . . . if you're not handsome and you're not athletic and you're not rich, there's still one last hope with girls, which is being funny.

It's not a filmmaker's job to explain his technique but to tell his story the best way he can.