If you change the right mind, then that person can perhaps change the world.

I like taking genres and subverting them. I did that with In the Valley of Elah. I said, "Okay, this is just a murder mystery. Relax." And then, two thirds of the way through, I broke every convention of a murder mystery.

You have to be careful of the advice you take.

There's something that's so basically corrupt about any system in which a good and fair profit is not enough. There has to be more, every year, every quarter, because your stock price has to rise.

I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me.

If you believe in someone enough, and you just don't stop believing in them, mo matter what, no matter how much they push you away, and no matter how often they prove they're only there to use you.

Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly.