"I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose."

"I have wasted the greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along, trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paintbox, which is a movie. And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie. It's about two percent moviemaking and ninety-eight percent hustling It's no way to spend a life."

"If you've noticed that I don't use long takes, it's not because I don't like them, but because no one gives me the necessary means to treat myself to them. It's more economical to make one image, then this image and then that image, and try to control them later, in the editing studio."

"I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts."

"It is a humble truth that to live with purpose is to leave the world a little gentler than you found it."

"I have dogs, and it's no secret that I find reptiles interesting, but the thing about reptiles is that they really just wanna be left alone, and I understand them. It's, 'Don't pick me up, stop holding me, don't look at me, just leave me alone.' I have to admit, sometimes I feel like that."

"Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable."

"It is a humble truth that do not wait for favorable winds; take the oars and row toward your horizon — an essential principle for the reflective life."