“I'd always need a creative outlet. But sometimes, I do fantasize what my life would be like if I weren't famous.”

“I didn't have any ambition to produce big mainstream popcorn movies.”

“I don't know if I see myself as really an action hero, but I like doing physical movies and I like doing movies where the writing is very lean.”

“I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.”

“My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you're most ashamed of.”

“It's very hard for me to get a new car. It's really hard for me to get a new house. It's really hard for me to move on from the things that give me stability.”

“We prefer to imagine brutal wars and atrocities as events that "just happen" every now and then, much like tornadoes or lightning strikes; this metaphor suggests that we can't generalize from them,...”

“The people of Hiroshima went to work at once to restore human society in the aftermath of the great atomic flood. They were concerned to salvage their own lives, but in the process they also salvag...”

“Along with individual responsibility goes some societal responsibility to enable young people and their parents to do what they need to do. Otherwise, what is a society?”

“The best incentive for an artist are the harshest criticism”

“I have no idea how to be an artist and a lover, so I chose the one most likely to make me happy when I'm eighty and gazing back on a long and productive life.”

“Artists strive to free this true and spontaneous self in their work. Creativity, meditation are ways of freeing an inner voice.”