You know it's always amazed me - I think the most startling thing that's happened in the last couple of decades is that there is no sort of objective reporting anymore.

Yeah, I had an idea to make a very scary movie, based on a kind of serial murderer that preys on tourists.

Well, like any time you're shooting documentary stuff, you've got to be in the moment, and you've got to be able to be in control enough to capture what's happening.

You really are as hot as your last movie. And it goes away really quickly.

Well, I just think through your career you go through different phases, and I just got sort of uninspired by the whole studio process of making and releasing films.

So I like to try to go back and develop pure visual storytelling. Because to me, it's one of the most exciting aspects of making movies and almost a lost art at this point.

But, number one, I think traditional noir doesn't work in contemporary storytelling because we don't live in that world anymore.

You know, I listen to contemporary music all the time.

You know it's always amazed me - I think the most startling thing that's happened in the last couple of decades is that there is no sort of objective reporting anymore.

I guess what's most surprised me in most of the reviews is that they don't seem to get the noir story in the dream sequence, so they analyze it like a straight noir movie.

And I always had this idea for making a movie about a femme fatale, because I like these characters. They're a lot of fun, they're sexy, they're manipulative, they're dangerous.

I've been obsessed with this kind of visual storytelling for quite a while, and I try to create material that allows me to explore it.

I've been sort of traveling around the country for ten years talking about independent features.

I'm always looking for a kind of new musical entity to sort of move into a motion picture venue.

I've dropped myself into straightforward character pieces in order to explore that form and reap its values. But you are sort of restricted visually when your first requirement is to tell a fairly straightforward story.

However, I spent most of my time in a Quaker school.

I don't see scarey films. I certainly wouldn't go see my films.

Godard is incredibly brilliant, the things he says. Apparently here in France, the most interesting thing when a new film of his is going to come out are his press conferences, because he's so brilliant.

That's what noir feels like to me. It feels like some kind of recurring dream, with very strong archetypes operating. You know, the guilty girl being pursued, falling, all kinds of stuff that we see in our dreams all the time.

I mean, I don't mind promoting a movie, or talking to the press if it's going to be used in some way.

I hadn't done just a straight-out comedy in a long time, just letting an ensemble do really good character acting, having them carry the movie as in my earlier pictures.

I do like directing other people's material.

When you make a movie outside the system and it's successful critically or a moderate financial success, you usually have to go back into the system and make a big hit.

It's always great to discover a new star of tomorrow.

And we've become very doubtful of our information sources, because they're all controlled by these huge multilateral corporations.

However, ironically, I was baptized Presbyterian, and went to a Quaker school for twelve years.

The biggest mistake in student films is that they are usually cast so badly, with friends and people the directors know. Actually you can cover a lot of bad direction with good acting.

The real trouble with film school is that the people teaching are so far out of the industry that they don't give the students an idea of what's happening.

You know, when people want to get any information, research information, it will all exist on these Web sites.

It's always great when you discover someone.

That’s what noir feels like to me. It feels like some kind of recurring dream, with very strong archetypes operating. You know, the guilty girl being pursued, falling, all kinds of stuff that we see in our dreams all the time.

Mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

God, I love John Cassavetes. Throughout my acting career and continuing to be an actor and grow, I think there have been so many outstanding actresses, and I hope I can live up to the things they created and continue that on. I think Gina Rowlands is an amazing actress.

Ask yourself: if that is what Jesus is all about - that is, getting us to love one another - then why did everyone reject him?

I like the dark undertow of grime, and it gets me aggressive. You need that aggression.

There are certain promises you make that are more sacred than anything that happens in a court of law, I don't care how many Bibles you put your hand on.

If you believe that health care is a public good to be guaranteed by the state, then a single-payer system is the next best alternative. Unfortunately, it is fiscally unsustainable without rationing.

This is funny because I just had a job over the summer for VH1, a project I did called Strange Frequency where I got to play a Goth rock band singer.

As a main ingredient to the show, it has to have truth, represent truth, or else it won't last.

The Constitution grants only Congress - not the president - the power 'to borrow money on the credit of the United States.'

Honestly, humans are social creatures that really crave intimacy, and I think that the friends I have who are trying to somehow go it alone are suffering for it.

Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience.

Protein was the most valued ingredient 250 years ago: It was the rarest thing. Now the rarest thing we have is time: time to cook and time to eat.

People are always wanting to pull me up on my shortfalls. I try to battle against those and concentrate on how good things are.

The lazier a man is, the more he plans to do tomorrow.

The idea of songwriting is a transformative thing, and what I do with songwriting is take situations that are quite ordinary and transform them in some way. Apart from things like the murder ballads, the songs I write, at their core, are quite ordinary human concerns, but the process of writing about them transforms them into something else.

The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland.

Obsession is so extreme and so hard to imagine with the rational mind that it has a science-fiction-like quality to it-it's almost as if the obsessed one has been taken over by a replica, a pod, a facsimile of the rational person.

I live not in myself but I become Portion of that around me and to me High mountains are a feeling but the hum Of human cities torture.