Sometimes we have dreams, but we just can't make them. That's normal.

The actors come and you start seeing things happen for real.

The people who run the major banks have MBAs and wear suits. And when those people in suits come to the homes of people who don't have a high school diploma, don't even speak English, and offer them a home at zero percent down, that doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.

I like poetry, but honestly, I like dramatic literature more. If I had to pick between Rumi and Dostoevsky, I would pick Dostoevsky without even thinking about it. Ninety-nine out of 100 Iranians would probably pick Rumi. Kiarostami, too, would probably pick Rumi first. I try to have the meaning be in the action of the story, not in the symbolism. I want it to be in the action, and it's dramatic action that creates the meaning.

We're living in a world that says that if you engage in mass fraud, you'll be rewarded, but if you go down the street and steal an orange juice, you get arrested.

I never say "Action" or "Cut." Never. I think that would disturb the life from happening in and around everything.

It's hard for me to say you have to accept that the world is meaningless and the landscape is there before and after. That's not something we learn much in our culture growing up.