“That’s how it always is with me: the thing that sets me down to start writing is usually not what I end up doing. Because, as much as I love genre, and I try to deliver the goods, I go off from it. I go do my own thing.”

When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, ‘no, I went to films.’

I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of. Failure brings great rewards – in the life of an artist.

To be a novelist, all I need is a pen and a piece of paper.

Violence in real life is terrible; violence in movies can be cool. It’s just another colour to work with.

Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I’m lucky enough to be in the position where I don’t make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.

Don’t write what you think people want to read. Find your voice and write about what’s in your heart.

I write movies about mavericks, about people who break rules, and I don’t like movies about people who are pulverised for being mavericks.

Violence is fun, man.

I want to top expectations. I want to blow you away.

I loved history because to me, history was like watching a movie.

The easiest way to kill a cult is to make that cult accessible.

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

If you want to make a movie, make it. Don’t wait for a grant, don’t wait for the perfect circumstances, just make it.

I’ve always thought my soundtracks do pretty good, because they’re basically professional equivalents of a mix tape I’d make for you at home.

A writer should have this little voice inside of you saying, Tell the truth. Reveal a few secrets here.

Pigs are filthy animals. I don’t eat filthy animals.

Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny – he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed.

We need a government that stands up for working people. That is what we promised to deliver and that is what we must do.

A brand is two words: the ‘Promise’ you telegraph, and the ‘Experience’ you deliver.

The only responsibility I feel is to deliver something that’s new or at least to attempt that. The real responsibility is to entertain and to try and make people laugh.

Every day I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across America that have been ignored, neglected and abandoned.

Always deliver more than expected.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

Customers don’t measure you on how hard you tried, they measure you on what you deliver.