“You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead.”

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.

It’s not a matter of how well can you make a movie. It’s how well can you make it under the circumstance, because there’s always circumstances. You cannot use that as an excuse.

Someday you’re going to have to learn to separate what seems to be important from what really is important.

The one way the world hasn’t changed: teaching is still the most important job.

But having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences – is very, very important to actually being able to make movies.

Education is the single most important job of the human race.

The older you get, the less seriously you take criticism. I’ve gotten to a point now where I ignore it completely. It’s just not relevant to me anymore.

If you are right, go right ahead.

Accept yourself as you are right now; an imperfect, changing, growing and worthy person.

No human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?

A man only has the right to look down at another when he helps him to lift himself up.

Any real ecstasy is a sign you are moving in the right direction.

The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.

The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposite position. I assume that markets are always wrong.

The right hairstyle can make a plain woman beautiful and a beautiful woman unforgettable.