You want to surround yourself with people who are as dedicated to their discipline as you are to yours and let them do what they do.

Your favorite story, whatever it might be, was written for one reader

You learn to do your best writing on story rather than off story. Very often at the beginning of their careers, writers including me do their best dialogue writing off story - the best lines, the best observations - but they haven't got enough to do with the plot to stay in.

It's funny when you put music up against picture, and all your preconceptions go away, and you start over. You just realize that that doesn't work at all.

The stand-up really helped because you know the feeling when something feels true, and you know the feeling when it feels false. You don't ever want to give an actor the feeling of it being false, because you know how unfair that is.

Believe me, you can be in the middle of a beautiful take and the next thing you know you're awash in people crossing the street. You can't even find your actors.

When your characters are not white hats or black hats but something in between, you do have to be very careful about your details. So, that takes a while. I'm not interested in white hats and black hats. I don't think that's how people are in real life.