So with 'There Will Be Blood,' I didn't even really feel like I was adapting a book. I was just desperate to find stuff to write.

I didn't have any desire I might have had 10 years ago to shoot every single word that I wrote.

Clinton used to like to get out of the White House a lot. He would take night trips to McDonald's, and stuff like that. I think he wanted to get out of the house.

I'm not really a Sundance baby, but they helped me so much I feel I have to acknowledge it.

Of course, I'm no dummy.

I had the standard movie geek childhood, because for as long as I can remember, all I wanted to do was make movies.

My dad was this sort of avant-garde guy who did all kinds of weird things. He was a true original and anybody who met him never forgot him.

I don't want to be the angry guy.

You know, I'm really not that competent at describing things musically.

Crazy is so hard to play, there's nothing you can really tell an actor.

As I have got older and become a father, there's less and less time for films.

I don't think the competition's so rough, within the majority of movies made in Hollywood.

I don't think it's a director's job to peek behind the curtain too much.

I write from my stomach.

Acting is the hardest job in the entire world. By far. Harder than ditch digging.

Well I'd really love to work with Robert De Niro, because he's still the most talented actor out there.

The films that I love are very straightforward stories, like really old-fashioned stuff.

No matter how many times you do it, you don't get used to the sadness - for me at least - of coming to the end of a film.

I've never been a fan of whimsical or confusing storytelling.