Chemistry exists or it doesn't, and I think casting is a very underappreciated component of filmmaking.

I think all good sports movies aren't really about sports.

I've never even watched one of my films since they're completed.

I really tried to get comfortable with the notion of shooting digital on 'Foxcatcher' and just couldn't. I shot many tests and experimented with all sorts of techniques to manipulate it into a place that worked for us, but it just didn't happen.

Silence is absorption, and when you're watching a film and you're that quiet and you're that still, at least from my experience of watching films, that indicates an absorption, where you're really in the moment. You're really present. What you're seeing is vital to you in that moment, and it's tingling, and it's alive, and it matters.

I don't like sensationalizing events. Instead of making waves, I want to make everything settle, so we can see to the bottom of things.

I don't have many rules, but one of them is, 'Do not make a movie you yourself would not want to see.'

If you have a vision for something, things are navigable. If it gets fuzzy, then obstacles become much more formidable.

A lot of the time, excess on a film set is just damaging.

I do have that compulsion to organize moments into a larger thing.

If you track something like a political campaign and parcel out what's being communicated in a literal and narrative sense, and what's being communicated by means of emotional and symbolic language, you might find that it's the latter elements that absolutely dominate and move people. It makes me want to take that language and expose it.

Filmmaking requires the participation and cooperation of many people. It's unrealistic to expect that you're not going to be challenged by unforeseeable forces from every direction.

I like to rehearse. We did a lot of rehearsals for 'Moneyball,' but it is really individual to the actor. It's not like, 'Here is my process, everybody. Fit in.'

I am and always have been fascinated with people, and I have a very good time coming up with the narratives of people's lives, exploring how a person thinks and feels.

There is a paradox in politics that what it takes to get elected is not necessarily what it takes to govern, and my feeling is that trying to control things too much feels icky to me.

I think it's fair to ask how truthful a film is as opposed to how factual it is.

If something is to be quietly powerful, it requires more balance than a film that allows for more freneticism.

I know what it's like to be genuinely intrigued and compelled by a story and to have a sense that there's an adventure to be had and a film to be conjured.

One of the biggest turnoffs is being presented with an idea that's already, to a degree, complete. That's not an adventure, and it's not a learning experience. It's more of a chore. Then you become a technician with taste, as opposed to an explorer and an author.

I think Will Ferrell is probably completely evil, the darkest of them all. He is known among comics as the dark knight. An evil, evil man and a dangerous soul.

I'm actually not a big reader.

As a filmmaker, one tends to want to evolve evermore towards a place of independence.

What I will say - one thing that is attractive about getting a real film made within the studio system is that studio systems, with their marketing and distribution, have real power.

Film as a medium, like a novel as a medium, possesses a unique ability to communicate. Film is capable of communicating in a way that no other medium can, and I would say the same for the novel.

If you find yourself considering a project that seems like a layup, then you're diluted, or that movie's probably not the right movie for you to be making.

You can recognize almost immediately if the film you're watching is the product of some kind of a hive mind or the result of a personal vision and genuine collaborations. 'Manchester by the Sea' reminds us of the potential of the latter and, for that reason, is the kind of work that makes me, as a filmmaker, want to continue. It's inspiring.

Kenny Lonergan, as a filmmaker, doesn't tell stories so much as he observes them, which is to say, his films don't come pre-digested. You have to bring your own enzymes. It's a more gripping and challenging experience.

As a filmmaker, you want people to understand and get what you do, and it's a lot to ask for.

If I had a dozen lives, one of them would involve really getting off the rails in India, heavy into meditation.

I hardly read fiction; I mostly read nonfiction. I like to examine material things.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

The earth laughs in flowers.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!