The ability to take pleasure in one's life is a skill and is a kind of intelligence. So intelligence is a hard thing to evaluate and it manifests its….

For me, New Jersey is kind of a mythical place. It's emblematic of a certain aspect of American life. Florida is the same way. It's where people go t….

Some people will of course accuse me of misanthropy and cynicism. I can't celebrate humanity but I'm not out to indict it either. I just want to expo….

So far, at least, I haven't found a way to tell my kind of stories without making them both sad and funny..

The ability to take pleasure in one's life is a skill and is a kind of intelligence..

All I mean is, I'm not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it's not very loud. That d….

Usually the audience has no idea that the censored version of whatever movie they're watching isn't the original..

Every time you try to make another movie, you never know what will come of it. I can't say it ever gets easier, but it is in it's own way gratifying.….

I mean, there are many other directors who are probably both more skilled and excited to adapt novels or work within certain genre conventions. I'd l….

When I'm asked who my audience is, I say someone with an open mind, which is not a vacant one and sometimes a liberal mind is not the same thing as a….

That is definitely a misunderstanding between me and a part of my audience. To be honest, I am often unsettled by the responses some people have had ….

I mean, I don't want to sound - of course it's very nice, people come up and say appreciative things about my work. But the loss, in terms of privacy….

Storytelling is the only studio movie where the censorship is perfectly clear, the only studio movie with a big red box covering up a shot. I take pr….

It's one of the great gifts of having so little money that you are able to make these kinds of radical conceits that you could never afford to do had….

So much of what a pet is about for us is that it becomes a vessel for yearnings, dreams, illusions, hopes and so forth. It's a projection of the ulti….

I don't have a formula. Every time an actor wants me to hold their hand, I hold their hand. If they say, "Stay," I say "Okay, respect." You know? "I'….

People call you "director," but it really should be "economic manager." Because everything is "Well, we can do another take here, but then you're gon….

Art has a smaller audience than, say, movies or other forms of mass consumption. But that doesn't mean the work doesn't have an impact in a way that ….

Optimism is not inherently a superior way of viewing the world. Certainly doctors will say it might be better for one's physical health to be an opti….

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge..

In particular, people have trouble understanding where I stand in relation to my characters, and very often this gets reduced to me making vicious fu….