Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.

I don't get a sense of American pride. I just get a sense that everyone is here, battling the same thing - that around the world everybody's after the same thing, just some minor piece of happiness each day.

I am always looking for that nuance, that moment of truth, and you can't really do that fast.

I don't think the competition's so rough, within the majority of movies made in Hollywood.

I guess what I like in my movies is where you see a character change by maybe two degrees as opposed to the traditional movie change of ninety degrees. I guess that always feels false to me in movies because that doesn't truly happen. Around me, at least in the life I live, I guess I don't see people change ninety or a hundred degrees. I see them change in very small increments. I think it's just a monitor I might have on myself as a writer to not make any false scenes.

My writing has a lot to do with who I am, and what my life is like, and my relationships to people.

It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called 'Rule Of The Bone.' I didn't do a very good job. I didn't really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.