I get recognized just often enough to keep my ego bouncing along, but not so much that I can't go places.

Those of us who write spend our entire lives in an endless English class.

There are two things that I cannot resist: one is musicals and the other is a spaceship in trouble. But I am smart enough not to combine the two things.

Making 'The Avengers' was very important to me, but it was also extremely arduous. I missed my friends and I missed my home, so I decided to throw them all on camera, which is the only way I seem to know to relate to people.

I don't want the giant ego. I don't want to become Kevin Costner, singing on the soundtrack to The Postman.

I spent a ton of time alone. I was raised by a feminist; I had a terrifying father and oppressively scary and mean brothers. We had a farm. The rule was between breakfast and lunch you weren't allowed to make a sound.

I've never met a well-adjusted person. It's weird.

Loneliness is about the scariest thing out there.

I've been to two festivals in my life, and I've never been to Toronto. I haven't really been making festival movies. This is new territory for me.

What I do like is hiking. And that's what filmmaking is. It's a hike. It's challenging and exhausting, and you don't know what the terrain is going to be or necessarily even which direction you're going in... but it sure is beautiful.

My favorite part of Comic-Con? The groupies.

I think it's not inaccurate to say that I had a perfectly happy childhood during which I was very unhappy.

I did my English A level in England, and we studied Shakespeare. I had great, great high school teachers, and we parsed the text within an inch of its life.

I was never a games night guy, but at some point, social interaction starts to freak me out. So when there's a point, it's easier for me to see the people I love and hang out and try to have fun.

Never sit at a table you can't walk away from.

If somebody is in a story, they need to be there for a reason, and not just to set up somebody else's story.

Sarah Michelle Gellar's made some really good choices. She's had some bad breaks. She goes with the independent, interesting young filmmakers and then they get slammed, like 'Southland Tales.' I'm proud of what she's trying to do. It's hard.

There was a time before I felt I was a real writer, when I was a yarn spinner and I just wanted to tell story until it was over. But then there came a time where I was like, 'No, I want to understand something through writing this that I might have not understood before. I want people to come away with something to think about.'

There's a reason Tony Stark makes fun of 'Thor,' and mentions 'Shakespeare' in the park in 'The Avengers.' It's great to play high drama and comedy alongside a modern story.

I love all genres. The only thing I get stymied by is the Family Drama. I don't necessarily know how to approach that.

We are, all of us, incoherent text, and just knowing that - knowing that no matter how much you say, 'I am this' and part of you is not that - means that you can say it.

I love fantasy. I love horror. I love musicals. Whatever doesn't really happen in life is what I'm interested in. As a way of commenting on everything that does happen in life, because ultimately the only thing I'm really interested in is people.

I hate it when people talk about Buffy as being campy... I hate camp, I don't enjoy dumb TV. I believe Aaron Spelling has single-handedly lowered SAT scores.

I think everyone who makes movies should be forced to do television. Because you have to finish. You have to get it done, and there are a lot of decisions made just for the sake of making decisions. You do something because it's efficient and because it gets the story told and it connects to the audience.