Sometimes creativity is a compulsion, not an ambition.

I don't smoke and I don't want to smoke. I am not a fan of gratuitous smoking in films.

You can't control everything that comes to you.

I like it when the deeper you go with the character, the more you see the layers start to peel away.

The more you can create that magic bubble, that suspension of disbelief, for a while, the better.

I almost forgot what it's like to be proud of my government.

I tend to relate to a character in terms of the arc: what's interesting is where he starts versus where he ends up.

It must be good to be in Germany and France, because I have completely forgotten what it is like to be proud of your government.

As we say in the sewer, time and tide wait for no man.

Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige, my friend.

At this point in my life I'm not bent on proving anything, really.

Instead of telling the world what you're eating for breakfast, you can use social networking to do something that's meaningful.

It's dismaying to see the unilateralism that the government is doing.

I don't have anything to prove to anybody, which is a lovely place to be.

As we say in the sewer, if you're not prepared to go all the way, don't put your boots on in the first place.

Life, like poker has an element of risk. It shouldn't be avoided. It should be faced.

The best films of any kind, narrative or documentary, provoke questions.

The more you do your homework, the more you're free to be intuitive. But you've got to put the work in.

Sometimes we don't see certain things until we're ready to see them in a certain way.