“Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.”

Making a film is like putting out a fire with sieve. There are so many elements, and it gets so complicated.

It’s very important not to do what your peers think you should do, not do what your parents think,your teachers or even your culture. Do what’s inside of you.

Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that’s one of the hardest things to do because you don’t always know exactly where you’re going, and you shouldn’t.

I’ve always tried to be aware of what I say in my films, because all of us who make motion pictures are teachers – teachers with very loud voices.

I’m extremely grateful that I discovered my passion. I love movies. I love to watch them, I love to make them.

Working hard is very important. You’re not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard.

We were always dreaming of how it was going to be.

We are all living in cages with the door wide open.

Being in Washington is more fictional than being in Hollywood.

You need peers; you need people who are at the same level you are. You never know in life when you’re going to need help, and you never know who you’re going to need it from.

All democracies turn into dictatorships – but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it’s Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea.

If America is the pursuit of happiness, the best way to pursue happiness is to help other people.

Success is when you try to achieve your inward vision externally and have it come off the way you see it. Then YOU feel successful about it; that’s how success is measured.

Train yourself to let go of the things you fear to lose.

I’ve discovered that most critics themselves are cinematically illiterate. They don’t really know much about movies. They don’t know the history. They don’t know the technology. They don’t know anything. So for them to try to analyze it, they’re lost.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

Seeing yourself through the eyes of others makes it easier to love yourself.

It is frightening how dependent on drugs we are all becoming and how easy it is for doctors to prescribe them as the universal panacea for our ills.

I spent my whole life helping my mother carry around her psychic trunks like a bitter bellhop. So a great load was lifted when she died, and my life was much easier.

No matter how smart you are, you’re smarter if you take the easy ways when they are available.

That person who is the hardest to forgive is the one who can teach you the greatest lessons. When you love yourself enough to rise above the old situation, then understanding and forgiveness will be easy. And you’ll be free.

For us it’s not easy to be conformist, I cannot stand to be conformist, I don’t accept what it is, I like to say no. If I see an injustice I scream.

Conversion is not putting a man in an armchair and taking him easily to heaven. It is the beginning of a mighty conflict, in which it costs much to win the victory.

Best productivity tool ever invented? Easy…the word “no”.