Every year I hear people complain that the quality of screenplays and movies is declining. In my opinion, the vast majority of scripts written - as well as most movies that are released - are not very original, well-written, or interesting. It has always been that way, and I think it always will be.

There are people that grandstand and seem to be publicly politically engaged because they like the attention, more than because they're genuinely concerned about the world. But I don't think that's the majority.

I've never had a problem with people paying attention to what you're doing and say they find that they liked it.

I'm an optimist; I always hope that each new script is going to be a great story.

If you're trying to please everyone, then you're not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don't think, in the long run.

Here's where we are, this is what's happening. So do something, or get out of the kitchen.

My job as an artist, as I see it, is to understand and in some cases to take on various ways of thinking about people and the world that are different from my own, sometimes radically different.