If you take my sayings and explode them in the air, they remain only sayings. But if you fit them together in their correct places, you will have the….

I wrote to explain my own life to myself, stories are the vessels I use to interpret the world to myself..

For me, the shaping of the story is more important than accuracy..

I never work from an outline, and often I dont know how the story will end..

The poem is in my hands, and can run stories through her hands..

The only thing worth thinking about, when I write a story, is whether I like it, whether I want to write it, whether it excites me..

The American underground punk scene, though, is a story worth remembering..

A poet can feel free, in my estimation, to write a poem for himself. Or a painter can paint a painting for himself. You can write a short story for y….

Without death,' he answered, 'life is meaningless. It is a story that can never be told. A song that can never be sung. For how would one finish it?.

Hollywood has its own way of telling stories. I was just telling stories that I was familiar with. And it's what I want to do in the future: I want t….

It's rare that you cut out something that is really good. You screen all of it, and when the audience doesn't respond, you cut out whatever is holdin….

I've done so many movies with first-time directors, and honestly I just go with gut instinct. People that usually can tell me a good story, and talk ….

In fact, some reviewers have said that as they got into the story they forgot that the protagonist is a black woman. They were moved by the story - b….

Your favorite story, whatever it might be, was written for one reader.

David Burnett was the son of Martha Foley, who edited the Best American Short Stories series. She hired me to work with David and her to read stories….

But the smoking is very frustrating. Who knows where it will go; where the story will go; where the character will go? There's still lots of options..

Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line..

You are not your story. They are not your story about them. The world is not your story about the world..

I think the main thing over time is that you gain confidence and are able to tell your story better and stronger..

The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elu….

Give me a story that just makes me unreasonably vigilant. Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason..