And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I've never questioned the choices I make as a director.

All good ideas start out as bad ideas, that's why it takes so long.

You can't intellectually purge yourself of who you are. Whatever that is, it's going to come out in the wash, the film wash. What you are is going to be relevant, if not to yourself, to the movies you make.

If the world ran the way a crew runs a set, we'd have a better, more progressive world.

Actors just need each other to act together.

Lincoln's leadership is based on a number of precepts, but my favorite one is that he acted in the name, and for the good, of the people.

Audience members are only concerned about the story, the concept, the bells and whistles and the noise that a popular film starts to make even before it's popular. So audiences will not be drawn to the technology; they'll be drawn to the story. And I hope it always remains that way.