The only safe thing in filmmaking is to take a chance.

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

There's nothing in the American dream about character. It's a serious flaw.

No doubt you are as alarmed as I by the tragic decline in America's language skills. If 10 people read the following sentence: Two tanker trucks has just overturned in Alaska, spilling a totel of 10,000 gallons of beer onto a highway. two would find an error in subject-verb agreement, two would find an error in spelling, and six would find a sponge and drive north.

I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That’s the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.

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

It's the hardest thing on earth to like yourself, and then when you do, it's a catastrophe. I mean, the people I know who like themselves - I don't want to see them!