“My mother went to Radcliffe, and rather than just trying to get rich, she wanted to be a teacher and taught for over 30 years in the public schools. She’s definitely got some war stories.”

I feel things more deeply anything to do with kids. It just makes a big difference in my life Having a child is like taking the deepest core vulnerable aspect of myself, reaching in and taking it outside of my body.

I don’t go back and look at the monitor between every take; I wait until I feel like we finally got it right: “Let me stop and look at that last one on the monitor.”

There’s something really great and romantic about being poor and sleeping on couches.

You’re basically the sum of all the experiences you’ve ever had, and they’re sort of shaken up in you and reproduced in the things you create, and that includes seeing movies.

How about the more than 1 billion Muslim people in the U.S, who aren’t fanatical, who don’t punch women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, and pray five times a day?

My professional success is really important to me, and my career is really important to me. It’s the most important thing to me outside of my family. I take it very seriously and work really, really hard at it. Family comes first, but this is something that’s really important to me too.

My mother gets all mad at me if I stay in a hotel. I’m 31-years-old, and I don’t want to sleep on a sleeping bag down in the basement. It’s humiliating.

I want to thank my wife who I don’t normally usually associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good. It is work, but it’s the best kind of work, and there’s no one I’d rather work with!

God help me if I ever do another movie with an explosion in it. If you see me in a movie where stuff is exploding you’ll know I’ve lost all my money.

When you hire great actors, you’re lucky, so you just try to create an atmosphere where they can succeed and relax and take risks. You’re happy that you get to watch them at the monitor and that your name is on the director’s chair.

I’m not the most loathsome man in the world. I’ve dropped to number nine.

I’m sure I can make a movie that doesn’t feel like a seventies movie! But the truth is, that’s my favorite era in American filmmaking. To me, those were the great years.

Its not who you love. Its how.

Marriage hasn’t been my thing. But gay people, knock yourselves out!

I like acting for myself as a director. I act and I know that I’ll have a chance to have some say in what gets used and that I’ll be able to give myself enough takes and be on the same page as myself about how the scene should play.

Sure, I suffered a lot. But it’s not like the end of the world and it’s not who I am. I lead quite a pleasant life and I’m able to divorce a perceived reality from my actual experience of life.

I cannot love thee; thou ‘rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God’s pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared thee!

By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.

Every house needs a grandmother in it.

No matter how old you get, hug and kiss your mother whenever you greet her.

The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class.

I don’t know about changing my perspective, because motherhood is such a glorious blessing and I am very thankful for that. It is such a beautiful experience. I so strongly recommend it. It’s bliss, love, and fulfillment of another level.

You smell like my mother when she is happy.