There are a lot of ideas I have that I think would be very marketable and commercial, but they're not as compelling to me as the ones that are unmarketable, uncommercial, and unprofitable.

Art has a smaller audience than, say, movies or other forms of mass consumption. But that doesn't mean the work doesn't have an impact in a way that transcends just a few cultural arbiters.

Every time you try to make another movie, you never know what will come of it. I can't say it ever gets easier, but it is in it's own way gratifying. I think that because no one movie that you make ever quite satisfies you, you're always feeling, "Next time I can get it right."

I always make mistakes and I always fix things up, as best I can, in the cutting room.

Some people see me as dissecting my characters in some kind of heartless, coldblooded, analytical way, when in truth making these movies is a passionate, intensely emotional experience for me. I'm detached from the characters only to the degree that I have to be in order to write honestly about them.

When I want to show the kind of meanness people are capable of, to make it believable I find I have to tone it down. It's in real life that people are over the top.

I can't please everybody and I don't try to. If I can please myself that's enough. For the rest, I just hope for the best.