It's not so much that I want to direct but that I have to. When I write something it terrifies me that if I give it to someone else and it doesn't turn out as it could have done, I'd feel as if I'd orphaned my baby.

What point is there to all the wealth and power that America may have if they can't look after its own?

I find the world more absurd now than I did when I was a kid.

Just in relation to women, it's not that huge an imaginative leap to see the connection between the Taliban and the Catholic Church.

Life is much weirder than fiction; nothing's more absurd.

Sometimes you have to confront your demons and sometimes even let them loose to genuinely find a place where you can gain some understanding.

There's a part of bohemia I love. The lack of prejudice, the lack of aggression, I love the lack, for the most part, of competitiveness. It's more peaceful.