We hit a stride where all self-consciousness disappeared.

Sony could have $50 million and a sound stage and A-list actors and never make the same film. The constraints on this film became the essence of this film, became the power of this film.

Being behind a camera, in front of the camera, is my own little deconstructionist niche.

We hit a stride where all self-consciousness disappeared.

I ultimately have faith though, that good films will find their audience.

In horror, character development is often pushed aside in favor of the shock value. The best genre movies to me are movies like The Shining. You had a connection to the characters in that film.

Pain is pain, joy is joy - you can't avoid bringing pieces of yourself into a role.

The first thing I do when I read a part is see if I can identify emotionally with a character. If I make that connection, everything else is just working on knowing their life circumstances and manifesting those through practice and research.

I would love to direct some day. It's a good job for a control freak.

I've done almost 20 films and I still worry about not finding the next one.

Actors are such an insecure breed.

We ended up with 19 hours of footage and had to narrow it down to an hour and a half. Our instructions were to film everything that came up, including the more mundane moments.

I think as long as there are folks on the fringe who want to make movies, the indie scene will still be around. I do think it's getting harder to get them seen though.

I'm really proud of Blair Witch Project as a film, but as far as the cultural phenomenon of it - that was just weird luck.

I'm less interested in slasher, and go more for roles that can affect you on a personal level. I'm interested in human empathy in the movies I see, and in the ones I am a part of.

Mike and Heather and I rapped once or twice in New York and then we all wound up on a train together on the way out to Maryland. I think it was about a month and a half from the time we got cast until the time we shot the thing.

Even in the realest American cinema that I see, there's still not that sense that this is reality. There's still that sense that you are watching a movie. And hopefully, if we did get our jobs right, that sense disappears when you watch this movie.

Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you

The painter... does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint. The self is the servant who bears the paintbox and its inherited contents.

Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery.

I would rather take the role and work and make my own money and self respect than to have sex with someone who has a lot of money.

Lying is the most simple form of self-defence.

Sexual self-restraint is only a preliminary stage in the ego's evolution.

The intelligence of the lower forms of animal life, like a great deal of human intelligence, does not involve a self.

If you improve a teacher's self-esteem, confidence, communication skills or stress levels, you improve that teacher's overall effectiveness across the curriculum.

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.

I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it's shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it's a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?

Self-justification is a treacherous servant.

To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it's unbelievable!

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion.

Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization.

Having a sense of purpose is having a sense of self. A course to plot is a destination to hope for.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me.

I think it is important to maintain a sense of self and confidence, not letting either falter for the sake of a particular part or project, no matter how great it might be.

The mind's first step to self-awareness must be through the body.

Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it's conditional.

But, sir, they have written me down upon the history of the country as worthy of expulsion, and in no unkindness I must tell them that for all future time my self-respect requires that I shall pass them as strangers.

If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices, we can restore our country to greatness.

Self-love seems so often unrequited.

Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.

Work while you work, play while you play - this is a basic rule of repressive self-discipline.

I cannot consistently, with self respect, do other than I have, namely, to deliberately violate an act which seems to me to be a denial of everything which ideally and in practice I hold sacred.

For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest.