“The very reasons sometimes that you make a film are the reasons for its failure.”

“My strength is with actors. I think I'm good at working with them to get the best performances, at seeing what it is that they have and that the story needs.”

“If you list the qualities that we consider feminine, they are patience, understanding, empathy, supportiveness, a desire to nurture. Our culture tells us those are feminine traits, but they're real...”

“I do have a responsibility, but I would make the most boring films in the world if I woke up every morning worrying about my social responsibility.”

“If I want to make people moved or cry in a film, I figure out what the room looks like, what the people are wearing, what time of day it is, what the light is, how to photograph it, where to put th...”

“What makes architecture extraordinary is that you're looking at the building, but your peripheral vision is also seeing how it fits within a space. And it's seeing more than one part of the buildin...”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,Love like you'll never be hurt,Sing like there's nobody listening,And live like it's heaven on earth.”

“Oh Woman, come before us, before our eyes longing for beauty, and tired of the ugliness of civilization, come in simple tunics, letting us see the line and harmony of the body beneath, and dance fo...”

“And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon.”

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”