“Emotion will always win over coolness and cleverness. It’s when a scene works emotionally and it’s cool and clever, then it’s great. That’s what you want.”

I’m basically like, you know, learned pretty quickly the guy who throws the first punch usually wins, so when people gave me a hard time I just punched them.

One can be inclined to just say, “F this political correctness! I don’t have time for that!”

All my movies are achingly personal.

I am not going to tell you how I believe, but I do believe in God.

There are a lot of bad screenplays so if you write a good screenplay people are going to respond to it.

I’m very happy with the way I write. I think I do it good. But I’ve never really considered myself a writer.

You name any horrific thing, and I can make a joke out of it.

If there is something magic about the collaborations I have with actors it’s because I put the character first.

That’s how it always is with me: the thing that sets me down to start writing is usually not what I end up doing. Because, as much as I love genre, and I try to deliver the goods, I go off from it. I go do my own thing.

Dogs got personality. Personality goes a long way.

If I’ve made it a little easier for artists to work in violence, great! I’ve accomplished something.

When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.

Just because you are a character doesn’t mean you have character.

You can’t write poetry on the computer.

The good ideas will survive.

Something stopped me in school a little bit. Anything that I’m not interested in, I can’t even feign interest.

Thought is so cunning, so clever, that it distorts everything for its own convenience.

I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to show it.

When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.

Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them.

Fear is the destructive energy in man. It withers the mind, it distorts thought, it leads to all kinds of extraordinarily clever and subtle theories, absurd superstitions, dogmas, and beliefs.

Here lies one who knew how to get around him, men who were cleverer than himself

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.