I never know when the seeds are being laid, I'm just like, "Wow, that's a pretty cool scene. Is that? Are we laying seeds here?"

But I think Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang really got that thing where, if a movie reads really funny and then has some dramatic or violent or sinister stuff in it, you can't forget that primarily it has to be even funnier than you read it or that other stuff doesn't work.

Mediocrity is my biggest fear. I'm not afraid of total failure because I don't think that will happen. I'm not afraid of success because that beats the hell out of failure. It's being in the middle that scares me.

You have to let go of the things that are darling to you. You have to take the focus off yourself and put it on the shape of the scene and the intention of what everyone else needs.

People never change because they are under threat or under duress. Never. They change because they see something that makes their life seem valuable enough to start moving toward a life worth living.

I like to be a little more difficult to nail down that that just inside myself, but when someone's motivations, even if they wind up falling in one side or the other of the debate, when they're personal and also when they're masked by something that only the audience knows is really their motivation, that to me is just what I call entertainment.

Every time I feel that I really hit critical mass and I'm in the right place is when I feel like the director and I become a third thing, and that's the character.