“They want to let the audience figure things out and let the reaction shot get the laugh.”

We should all relax about life because you don’t have a clue as to what’s really going on.

There is something about being a director where, for me personally, I get to . . . it’s the closest I’ll ever come to being able to be a stand up.

By definition a sequel can’t be original. So you’ve got to figure out what worked the first time around.

I haven’t read a review of one of my films for the best part of 10 years.

And then through editing, and finishing the effects and adding music, you get to make the movie better again. So I’m really hard on myself and on the movie.

And my feeling was if I was going to succeed as a director, I had to just be a director and give up the safety net of being a cameraman.

I’m not the one or two take guy, but I’m not the 20, 30, 50, 70 take guy either. If I do a bunch of takes, like more than five or six, it’s usually for some technical reasons.

These movies are like my kids. I just love them to death. Some of them go to Harvard and some of them can barely graduate high school.

I was seeing a lot of really good things about Get Shorty when it came out, and my wife pointed out that if you validate the good reviews, you also have to validate the bad reviews.

Michael Jackson wanted to be in Men in Black II. He told me he had seen the first Men in Black in Paris and had stayed behind and sat there and wept.

Michael worked one day. Everybody was a little freaked out and nervous because he’s a really big star. We were already working with really big stars, but Michael is Michael.

When I move from being a cameraman to being a director I looked at a lot of other cameramen who tried to make the move. And in each case they moved up their camera operator to be the DP, which really meant they didn’t want to give up being the DP, and really wanted to do both.

It felt scary because there was no auditioning, no rehearsing.

And to use my particular sense of humor, and hear people laughing, without me having to stand up in front of an audience and tell jokes.

I had to explain to him that it was a comedy.

The first cut I do is usually between five and 10 minutes shorter then the cut that we release.

There’s one of a figure with two heads that somebody thought must be a comment on the state of matrimony. None of it is a comment on anything.

Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age of their own planet.

Leaders have to figure it out when there is no road map.

Our authority figures, particularly our parents are hypnotic. Their words are hypnotic literally to small children because of brain wave patterns.

White has always been an exclusive definition. I think one of the challenges for white people is to figure out how to have a more inclusive picture of who their families are, of who they are.

And then once I figure out who they are I can figure out what they want and once I figure out what they want I’m able to put obstacles in the way of that desire, and that’s where plot springs from.

I couldn’t figure it out… then Michael told me that he had told Eric I had cancer and two months to live…

Too often boring players have been pushed forward as great by figures alone. For sheer entertainment, he will keep cricket alive.