To those humans in whom I have faith; I wish suffering, being forsaken, sickness, maltreatment, humiliation. I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, and the misery of the vanquished. I have no pity for them because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures' . . . Remember, the passion for destruction is also a creative passion.

The big nut to crack is to how to tell a story, what’s the right way to tell a particular story.

Filmmakers are going to make films, just like painters are going to paint.

…[Thomas Wolfe] says that we are the sum of all the moments of our lives, and that, uh, anybody who sits down to write is gonna use the clay of their own life, that you can’t avoid that.

It's kinda like D.H. Lawrence had this idea of two people meeting on a road, and instead of just passing and glancing away, they decide to accept what he calls the confrontation between their souls. It's like freeing the brave, reckless gods within us all.

I think maybe making films is something innate you can't really teach to begin with.

That's the history of art - you have to consider yourself fortunate if you ever get acknowledged. If you have a critical success that's also a financial success and that you feel good about... If things line up, that's pretty rare.