GOOD AS NEW was born out of the idea of writing a play where the stakes were high and the collisions were of a verbal nature. Also I wanted to write a play where people were smarter than I was, and more alive than I feel normally. I became interested in the idea of characters who would surprise me. I guess one could argue that nothing comes out of you that wasn't within you to begin with, but maybe there are ways to trick yourself into becoming more an observer or an advocate for the characters.

I want to write stories that don't help you escape life, but embrace life.

People love conversation, and movies are conversations, and an audience has to participate; it has to fill in some blanks.

I've wanted to direct for a long time, but it had to be a story I wanted to tell. The writer's job is to find the story that he should tell.

The bigger the budget, the less an audience is trusted, and that's the difference between a big-budget film and a small-budget film.

The better the script, the less money there is. That's just the economics of the studio system.

I can't stop terrorism; I can't cure cancer. But I can put some stories out there in their own quiet way that talk about tolerance.