Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write..

Directing was a big learning experience for me because I had to deal with every aspect of everything-all this constant decision-making, with people a….

I choose to write characters from the inside because I feel like that's the way I'm gonna get the most honest version of them..

I don't subscribe to anything. I sit there and I try to think about what seems honest to me..

There's theater in life, obviously, and there's life in theater..

In a lot of movies, especially big studio ones, they're not constructed in any other way than to get people to like them and then tell their friends.….

I like for people to figure things out for themselves. It's not like I have the right answer, but if I have a visceral reaction to something, I'm sur….

The difference between a movie and a play is that the production you end up with is the production. If a movie that I spent time on turns out to be c….

If I were doing somebody else's script or I adapted a book by Philip Roth, on set there could be a million different interpretations of the material ….

I tend to not only read reviews, but also every little stupid thing online. It's a very bad idea, and there's a lot of angry people in the world. And….

I have a tendency to hire people who tend to be unattractive to the studios. Maybe this is a bad idea..

I often have a theme in mind when I'm starting. I know that I want everything to be in a world of, say, evolution, or guilt..

When I'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience, rather than separate myself from it and look back at it from ….

I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays..

I want to create situations that give people something to think about..

I studied acting at Boston University. I was in the theater department there. Somewhere in there I decided that wasn't what I was going to do and I w….

There are so many people who are making movies now who can’t get any kind of distribution, so the market seems like it’s flooded..

I wanted to deal with someone's idea of their relationship..

I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal..

From my vantage point in writing a story, I can't and don't and have no interest in thinking about the level of sophistication of the audience. I can….

I don't think the world objectively exists the way we think it exists. There's a constant sort of storytelling process..