“The story of America is necessarily one of progress because if it’s not than it’s a stale story where we have not risen above Klansmen.”

I love the bullshit morning shows. They’re so stupid but I love them.

American films are the best films. This is a fact. Cinema is – along with Jazz – the great American art form. And cinema in a very real sense created the American identity that has been exported around the world.

British films are all “room with a view and a staircase and a pond.”

Nationality was – and is – far less a divide than age… because “everything is global, man!”

We’re a leader sure, but still a member of the global community. And that’s true and important and when America acts like its worst self on the global stage is when we forget that.

Blue jeans and Hollywood and rock & roll won the cold war.

Nietzsche said that everyone tells themselves the story of their life. That’s true about countries, too. We’re constantly telling ourselves the American story.

You have to be a really talented writer if you’re trying to encapsulate a news story with a song and have it live after the event. I don’t have the focus to do that, really.

Notice that the whole story of Eden is the story of the struggle over a woman’s relationship to a psychoactive plant.

Those two volleys really could be the story of this match summed up at the end of it.

I have just made stories to please myself, because I never grew up.

Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.

I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true […].

Although I’m up for working in any genre, I do love the passion and dynamic storytelling that horror stories can provide. Dealing with big questions and possibilities of all sorts of stories with life and death consequences is enthralling and exhilarating to me.

The most important part of a story is the piece of it you don’t know.