It's more like can I build a group of characters and can I tell some universal truths that feel real and aren't formulaic in the spirit of filmmakers gone by who've told American stories that were personal and universal as well.

In the future, everybody is going to be a director. Somebody's got to live a real life so we have something to make a movie about.

Time puts things in proper perspective.

Well it kind of is project to project because as a writer I think you always write to some degree about things that you know or things that happened - but my favourite filmmakers, my favourite movies of theirs tend to be the personal movies.

It's more like can I build a group of characters and can I tell some universal truths that feel real and aren't formulaic in the spirit of filmmakers gone by who've told American stories that were personal and universal as well.

Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist.

And I liked that whole idea that energy comes from not disseminating your ideas and talking about them.

People dance and we have a lot of music and... this might be the closet I get for a while.

Great music is its own movie, already. And the challenge, as a music fan, is to keep the song as powerful as it wants to be, to not tamper with it and to somehow give it a home.

'Elizabethtown' was a movie made for all the right reasons, and people who connect with the movie really connect to it. It's not the biggest group of people ever, but I still really believe in 'Elizabethtown.' It wasn't, like, a savage blow.

I always loved movies, but I never thought I would presume to be a screenwriter and definitely not a director.

I always wanted to tell the story of how Pearl Jam is the story of lightning striking twice. As well as being the flipside of the classic rock tale where great promise ends in tragedy. This is where tragedy begins great promise.

I don't think people are ever going to a place where they're like, 'I'm over stories about character and love.'

I have my problems with 'Singles'. To me, 'Singles' is the least successful of the movies I've been lucky enough to make.

I love actors.

I mean, Internet radio, which is basically a guy with his iTunes putting it over the computer, is the only way you're going to get true eclectic music programmed.

I think sometimes good sentimentality is fun when it's balanced.

I think there's always satisfaction that comes from digging in and telling a story and being on the front line and writing about it. I think there's a venue available if you look. Even print journalism is in good shape in areas.

I try and direct environmentally, so that people don't feel like everything is going to depend on what happens when someone says, 'action,' so that they can literally be swimming in the warm water, and at some point the race begins, and at some point the race ends, but it is about being free to swim.

I'm always writing. A friend of mine once said, 'You avoid re-writing by writing.' Which is kind of a good point, because re-writing seems to be mostly about craft, and writing is just, like, getting out your passion on a piece of paper.

I'm proudest of the fact that I've been able to make a few movies in the studio system that are slightly unorthodox and personal. But it's never quite as easy as you dream that it could be.

I've been out doing signings and talking to a lot of people, and I'm just really grateful.

Making a big Hollywood film that really affects people is as hard as making a small movie on a credit card.

People are going to go where they get characters that they remember.

Some of the hip-hop stuff people get into is exciting, because there's a passion and there's something to explain to a more mainstream audience, so you get these passionate writers who want to express their love for rap and hip-hop, which is cool.

Stars arrive on their own timetable.

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Under current law volunteers who are not working with an official nonprofit organization are not covered by the Volunteer Protection Act. Therefore, there are absolutely no legal protections for the average American who wishes to volunteer.

There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is. It is the American Dream.

The thing is there have been American movies that are similar to Solaris, like Alien had a lot of things that are similar, although it's also got the horror element.

On the road to equality there is no better place for blacks to detour around American values than in forgoing its example in the treatment of its women and the organization of its family.

The generic Canadian style of illustration is different from the generic American style.

But the deep desire for peace remained with the American people.

And while the U.S. can never be 100 percent safe from a future strike, our government is working around the clock on measures to protect the American people.

All we're getting from the Democratic majority in Congress and from this White House is more bailouts, more spending, more planned stimulus, more deficits and debt, and the American people have had it.

Who cares about that stuff? This is America, not Jerusalem. I'm an American. Let Harry be a Jew.

The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with.

The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.

I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I've done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?

But the Congress has made the determination that certain kinds of information can be protected even though the American people may want to have access to information.

No one will burn out doing aerobic running. It is too much anaerobic running, which the American scholastic athletic system tends to put young athletes through, that burns them out.

I was on TV for almost sixteen weeks during American Idol. It's at the point now where it's old.

What I think we need to do to engage the American people in a conversation about entitlement reform is to have a bipartisan group of people who come together and put every solution on the table, every alternative on the table. And then we ought to engage in a long conversation with the American people so they understand the choices.

I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican-I'm an American, I'm a human.

Long after this wonderful event in the Earth's history, when the human species was spread over a good deal of Asia, Europe, and Africa, migration to the American continents began in attempts to find new feeding grounds and unoccupied areas for hunting and fishing.

The time has come for the American government to recognize the damage that has occurred to our economy, and to take firm action to curtail what I believe is both unfair and illegal foreign competition.

The labor movement means just this: it is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.

We in this Congress have a choice. The American people have a right to exercise a choice on this issue, as to whether our men and women will continue to fight and die in a war based on deception and fantasy, or to start bringing the troops home.