If I grew up in a different background, I could see myself getting a gun and shooting an abortionist. That's my job, to imagine what could happen, what can make people go in different directions.

You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.

In particular, people have trouble understanding where I stand in relation to my characters, and very often this gets reduced to me making vicious fun of them.

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.

So far, at least, I haven't found a way to tell my kind of stories without making them both sad and funny.

I've always said that I myself am not the best audience for my own work, because I'm just not that receptive to comedy.

The funny thing is, strangers still seem to feel comfortable coming up to me and saying things, but now usually it’s because they recognize me, and they say nice things.