I love working with actors. If you cast the right person in the right part at the right time, they make you look like a better writer and director than you really are.

Compromise is part and parcel of making a movie. It's a question of the kinds of compromises that you have to make.

One thing I want to say: I don't like victim stories and I don't write them.

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.

I always have to presume that each movie is my last movie because I never know if I'll get money again.

At eleven I was at the peak of my creative powers: I was writing stories and playlets, putting together poetryprojects. I was absorbed by my 'work.' At twelve I was no longer reading or writing, just counting off days and checking them off. I was interested in survival.

There can be a blurry line between laughing at the expense of a character and laughing at the recognition of something painful and true. But blurry as it may be, it is nevertheless unmistakable, and sometimes the laughter I hear makes me wince.