Anyone who's ever had a loved one go through addiction will know just how devastating it can be and how tough it is for those around them, as much as it is for the addict.

I think there is more to this world than we can possibly fathom. There's got to be.

I think from doing so many live shows it gives you a real appreciation of being present. You don't know what's going to happen, you don't know what is around the corner.

I can be quite argumentative and stubborn if I get a bee in my bonnet. I can be quite a pain.

Sometimes life has to tell you a little more forcefully: 'Slow down or change direction.'

'Winter's Bone' really suited having a lower budget. It would be so hard rolling into a rural setting, a place where people are poor, and to be thinking you've got $10 million to make a piece of entertainment.

I don't want to be on a soapbox, but I feel like a lot of documentary filmmakers are part of the ancient tradition of writing down notes, of saying, 'Hey people, hey people!'

There's all these costs of war, and they're huge and long-lasting. It's not just the numbers CNN broadcasts. And we never want to pay the VA bill; we never want to pay the bill to take care of these warriors after we applaud their sacrifice.

In the U.K., working-class lives are depicted with the characters' humour, but in the U.S., people with difficulties are often depicted with pious or simply dreary lives.

Humour is used in struggle and solving difficult things, and I relish that tradition.

Humour is the be-all and end-all medicine of human existence.

When men's lives become extremely hard, women learn how to deal with them and assist them but also develop quiet systems of coping and managing.

The immigration process is so unbelievably complicated and expensive and endless!

There is a porous membrane between a documentary that doesn't use interviews and what you would call a neorealist hybrid film.

The protagonist in 'Winter's Bone' was a really good role for a female. She was strong; she didn't have to conform to something or be a sidekick to any man. That's part of what you're responding to; it's a woman-centric situation. Her value in the film was not reliant on any man.

You have so much more time to observe and learn with a documentary because of the time between the shoots. You get a much deeper understanding of day-to-day life and its themes. It's also much more of a mess after three years; you have to comb it out carefully and see what fits together and makes sense.

I'd love to do a comedy - something where a character has to use humor to navigate the absurdities of life.

My first camera job was filming workplace safety videos, which involved months of watching and videotaping people doing their jobs. I was hooked - from there, I wanted to know where they lived and the rest of their habits and desires.

My first narrative films developed out of a documentary process - finding someone who was willing to be filmed, watching, listening, taking copious notes and many hours of video footage.

When I read Daniel Woodrell's novel 'Winter's Bone,' I was drawn to the characters, the setting, and the sound of the dialog.

All filmmakers want the option to make another film, to have it not always be such an uphill battle - for it to be our life, our working life.

I need and want to see capable women. I don't like to see them weep all the time.

There has to be a continuation of the communal experience of filmgoing.

Action films don't speak to me, because that's not my skill set. I also have a lot of stipulations about stories I don't want to perpetuate, ones that bring me down or make me feel like life's not worth living.