As a filmmaker, you're looking to reveal something. When other people relate to it, it makes an otherwise lonely world a little less lonely.

The one thing I'll say is I was a quiet kid. Much more of an observer than a performer.

I am nostalgic for those man-behind-the-curtain days when someone could get away with impersonating Kubrick because nobody had any idea what Kubrick looked like.

The silence of a room when someone enters with a gun is very different from the sound that room makes when empty.

Kubrick has a divining rod for the concealed, alienating secrets of characters.

Capote is one of those people who represents something larger than himself. I think that his ambition, his kind of success, and the downfall that followed are very contemporary.

I think baseball represents something closer to our experience. There's no clock in baseball; it's not over until it's over. It's like life in that there are prolonged periods of boredom and monotony, punctuated by intense moments of excitement and sometimes terror.

I like to rehearse to the point we're in the ballpark, and expect that we're only going to get one proper take, more or less.

It's amazing how much you will forgive if the behavior is truthful.

There's always something happening in pretty much every moment of every scene of everything I've ever worked on in longform that's not being expressed or acknowledged.

I definitely have moments in my life where I discovered a film, and the language of the film itself spoke to me in a way, as if someone came up to you and started speaking a language you'd never heard but understood and was able to express things the language you knew could not.

The version of 'Moneyball' I pitched - and we made - is about a guy, Billy Beane, who thinks he's trying to win baseball games. But it's deeper than that.

People without fathers tend to have two predominant characteristics. They tend to believe anything is possible. At the same time there's an anxiety and an unending insecurity. It's a very American thing because back in the past, we lost our fathers or father. The king.

I don't want to sound too spiritual, but when you are true to yourself and follow through with things that connect with you meaningfully, somehow things fall into place.

It couldn't be more satisfying to work on something almost anonymously for years, then to have it received affectionately with support.

I think in terms of content and subjects and whatever kind of production it dictates. Can I conceive of an idea that would really connect with my personal rhythms and cost a lot of money? I don't gravitate in that direction, but it is possible.

Before I find myself in the middle of a project, I want to make sure it is the kind of thing that keeps me excited for two years. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to push the proverbial rock up the proverbial mountain.

If you talk to anybody, among the first things you'll hear is, 'Steve Carell is the nicest guy in the world.' And he is. 'Steve Carell is the greatest guy to work with.' And he is. But all of that belies other aspects that are as true with him.

I like going into a scene knowing that the script isn't quite finished, that there's something that isn't really going to reveal itself until something spontaneously occurs.

I have a tremendous amount of patience and tolerance when working with people, but if I ever feel the impulse to inhibit myself from doing one more take, or feel a need to apologize to someone for pushing, I know that that relationship isn't gonna last.

You can write ten versions of a scene, and then, on the day, discover that something in the original scene worked. It's hard on writers. Hard on actors, hard on editors, hard on me, hard on the producers, who require patience and confidence. But I can't get to the end without going through this process.

I am a tumbleweed. I don't have a company. I don't have a staff. I don't own anything - I've never owned a car or an apartment.

I am attracted to anything that does not feel derivative.

I think the mind has a way of getting to where it needs to get to. If you are persistent.