I hope that Requiem is better than Pi. I hope that Pi is better than my student films, and I'm hoping that I'm getting better as I get older.

When I go to movies I generally want to be taken to another world.

I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.

I'm not a comic book guy at all.

There's always been a lot of pressure and tension on the line. If 'Pi' didn't work out, I have no idea what my career would be. I don't think I would have gotten another shot at it. If 'Requiem for a Dream' didn't work out, they would have called me a 'one-hit wonder with a sophomore slump'.

Animators have to live life 24 times as long as we do - every 24 frames of a second.

I had some big ups and downs when I was in my 20s and the one thing I learned was, no matter how low it gets, something good will come along - something always comes out of that dark period.

As filmmakers, we can show where a person's mind goes, as opposed to theater, which is more to sit back and watch it.

I try to live my life where I end up at a point where I have no regrets. So I try to choose the road that I have the most passion on because then you can never really blame yourself for making the wrong choices. You can always say you're following your passion.

Turning 30 was when my parents both got cancer and were fighting it and beat it, but their mortality started to get to me. Everything wasn't as hunky-dory like it was.

These wrestlers aren't organized. They have no union, no pension and no insurance. You meet wrestler after wrestler who sold out Madison Square Garden ten years ago, basically running on fumes today. There's a lot of drama there.

I was a TV junkie as a kid. I am the Sesame Street generation.

Casting ethnic characters is a very hard thing to do, but it's important. It's also interesting.

I think video games and that stuff should be as violent as possible, but age-appropriate. It should be realistic. When it's not realistic you run into kids running around shooting people and not realizing the consequences.

I hope that Requiem is better than Pi. I hope that Pi is better than my student films, and I'm hoping that I'm getting better as I get older.

Right after I did 'The Fountain,' I wanted to go make a documentary or something that was less constructed - more natural. I was searching for a project, and sniffing around, 'The Wrestler' fit right in.

Comic books and graphic novels are a great medium. It's incredibly underused.

I've always wanted to introduce hip-hop filmmaking to film. There's hip-hop art, dance, music, but there really isn't hip-hop film. So I was trying to do that.

I only want to work with actors that really get it and make it work. I didn't want it to be a star-driven thing anymore.

At the end of Requiem all I wanted to do was get a DV camera and just do a small film. But then the hunger comes back.

To me, watching a movie is like going to an amusement park. My worst fear is making a film that people don't think is a good ride.

I'm Godless. I've had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking.

I'd like to do a lot of different stuff. I think it's important as a creative person to keep challenging yourself and keep doing new stuff. If you end up trying to repeat yourself it's death. It just becomes boring and takes the passion out of it. You gotta find stories and characters that you really want to hang out with.

If you ask any person on this crew what they think of Hugh Jackman they'll admit they've never seen anything like it. I'll give him an emotional note and he'll hit it every time.

Now there is so much expertise and brainpower it's hard to be at the cutting edge of what's cool and not do something that's totally geeky.

Classical scores go up and down; they're kind of hysterical in a way. And movie scores are much more - they just drive and move forward, and they build and can't go up and down at that same speed. It's a big job to turn that into something that pushes the movie along.

I grew up in a family with two very strong women, my mother and my older sister, and they were big influences on my life.

I grew up in a family with two very strong women, my mother and my older sister, and they were big influences on my life. I've spent a life loving women, and studying them as much as I can, or am allowed to.

I spent about a year and a half doing technical post work on 'The Fountain'. Although I do like the process, I think my favorite part of filmmaking is the actors.

I think it's important as a filmmaker, as any person working in the arts, that you've got to try new stuff and challenge yourself and take chances.

I wasn't a big fan of social anthropology. And, luckily, that created room for me to work in visual arts because I sort of ignored my requirements. I think I was attracted to social anthropology because I liked to travel and was always interested in far-off places.

I've spent a life loving women and studying them as much as I can, or am allowed to.

It would be nice to make a movie that other people want to make, because every one of these movies, I basically have to find the only company in the world that's willing to make it, and it's always a big challenge. I end up spending a tremendous amount of energy and time trying to get money to make these movies and it's exhausting.

You hear stories about directors using manipulation to get actors to do certain things, but I think when you're working with professional actors, it's all about trust. They can do anything you want, it's just a matter of them understanding what you're looking for, and the reason why.

Now there is so much expertise and brainpower its hard to be at the cutting edge of whats cool and not do something thats totally geeky.

As filmmakers we can show where a persons mind goes as opposed to theater which is more to sit back and watch it.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears.

The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that, all the other things will come; if you don't, there's no hope for you.

I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and that we are all members of it.

The only hope is that our civilization will collapse at a certain point, as always happens in history. Then, out of barbarity, a renaissance.

Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.

Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is very good company by the way.

I don't sit in the corner waiting for death: death has to pursue me. I'm going strong. I hope to reach 100 and ask for an extension, just like my grandmother did.

When I talk to people in need, they tell me they want to hope; they are eager for opportunity; they are ready for better days. And I can tell you that every time their hopes are disappointed, all nations lose.

I'd hope to reach any kid who feels apart from the group - those who seem to be outsiders, who feel different. Kids who want to reach their parents often don't know how to do so.

If we can just take a few companies, and use those as models, as examples, to show the rest of corporate America how they can become more competitive, that's what I'd like to do and that's what I hope to do.