It's all about perfection, isn't it?

It's not everyday you get to do a pirate movie, you might as well go for it.

And we're fortunate if we have parents who are great and loving and inspiring. But, unfortunately, there are people who don't have that.

I'm not a photographer, so I didn't get into F-stops or ND filters or background, foreground, cross-light, all that stuff. But I was interested in the camera and the lenses. That's the world that I'm moving in, in terms of acting and giving a performance.

But I think we're also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They've seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There's so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.

The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew's cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo's choice to know the truth. It's a beautiful, beautiful story.

I am waiting for the right story to tell. Just like 'Man of Tai Chi' just seemed to be the right story to tell. So I'm looking for that. Because I really love directing. I love developing the story. I love actors. I love the cinema of it, the way that you tell a story visually.

I am not handsome or sexy. Of course, it's not like I am hopeless.

It's always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery and the joy and the depth. If you can make a woman laugh, you're seeing the most beautiful thing on God's Earth.

I'm Mickey Mouse. They don't know who's inside the suit.

How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I'll say that. Wonder and terror.

I'm a meathead, man. You've got smart people, and you've got dumb people. I just happen to be dumb.

When I don't feel free and can't do what I want I just react. I go against it.

How do people relate to movies now, when they're on portable devices or streaming them? It's not as much about going to the movies. That experience has changed.

I want to make a good, solid kung fu movie.

Energy can't be created or destroyed, and energy flows. It must be in a direction, with some kind of internal, emotive, spiritual direction. It must have some effect somewhere.

Kissing someone is pretty intimate, actually very intimate, and your heart always kind of skips a beat before you do that.

I'm sorry my existence is not very noble or sublime.

When the people you love are gone, you're alone.

It's easy to become very self-critical when you're an actor. Then you get critiqued by the critics. Whether you agree with them or not, people are passing judgment on you.

Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don't have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.

People were saying that David Geffen and I had gotten married and it just blew me away. Not that they thought I was gay, but that they thought I could land a guy that hot.

Mortality is very different when you're 20 to when you're 50.

Here comes 40. I'm feeling my age and I've ordered the Ferrari. I'm going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.