A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

I was always a filmmaker before I was anything else. If I was always anything, I was a storyteller, and it never really made much of a difference to me what medium I worked in.

Schools and libraries are the twin cornerstones of a civilized society. Libraries are only good if people use them, like books only exist when someone reads them.

Art doesn't just happen by accident. It is about pulling out new tricks and trying new things.

A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

As a writer, you have control of the words you put on the page. But once that manuscript leaves your hand, you give control to the reader. As a director, you are limited by everything: weather, budget, and egos.

Actors will change their face, will change their hair, will change their voice, will disappear into the role. A movie star doesn't disappear.

An actor is someone who pretends to be somebody else. A movie star is somebody who pretends that somebody else is them.

The first thing that put me on the map was my Sherlock Holmes novel.

There are moments in one's life where you look back and you say, 'Well, I wish I had done this differently.'

We must support initiatives that provide clear, concrete measures and milestones that our troops need for defeating the insurgency, building up Iraqi security forces, and handing over Iraq to the Iraqi people.

In other words, I have no truck for anyone who goes out and does an eclectic building.

We believe that peace is not just signed papers, but rather a contract between generations for the building of a more promising and less threatening future.

Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.

Nature is my manifestation of God. I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work. I follow in building the principles which nature has used in its domain.

So I rang up a local building firm, I said 'I want a skip outside my house.' He said 'I'm not stopping you.'

We have a group of friends of the museum who try to raise, if they can, periodically something to help us. Of course, the main thing about a building like this is its upkeep. It needs central heating and it needs central air conditioning.

Rather, it is through conciliation and compromise that we are building a fair Iraq, a just state for all its peoples.

For the next century, the Republicans have agreed that we will promote the dignity and future of every individual by building a free society under a limited, accountable government that protects liberty, security and prosperity for a brighter American dream.

I smuggled the camera, it was no problem to smuggle the camera there. And I took 60 photos, two films, during the time when there was no one in the control room, in the building.

Well, by the end of the millennium, five, six months from now, we hope to somehow manage to move into a new location where we have the whole building, so we can devote space to all our activities.

The anger that appears to be building up between the sexes becomes more virulent with every day that passes. And far from women taking the blame... the fact is that men are invariably portrayed as the bad guys. Being a good man is like being a good Nazi.

Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen.

There are some who are scared by unity and by building a country on the basis of ideas.

I don't think so, in that Virgin is already a global brand. Brands like Amazon have had to spend hundreds of millions of pounds you know, building their brands, whereas Virgin is already well-known around the world.

Man is a fire-stealing animal, and we can't help building machines and machine intelligences, even if, from time to time, we use them not only to outsmart ourselves but to bring us right up to the doorstep of Doom.

For the first time in history all the major countries in the world are pushing together to reach this goal... building something in space that is really for all humankind.

The building of friendship, family, community and love is complicated. We are so isolated in this country, no longer supported by tribes and villages.

Democracy is not something that happens, you know, just at election time, and it's not something that happens just with one event. It's an ongoing building process. But it also ought to be a part of our culture, a part of our lives.

When a house is being built which is to be made as strong as possible, the building takes place in fine weather and in calm, so that nothing may hinder the structure from acquiring the needed solidity.

Education is all a matter of building bridges.

Democracy in Yemen did not stop, instead it is in a continuous development, there is no other way to follow rather than democracy, it is our national way for building up our country, it was not imposed on us by others.

Success is like a high-rise building I'm on the first floor. There are a lot of people in the basement or the parking lot but I was lucky enough to have made it to the first floor and I'm looking to make it to the penthouse.

The SSRC committee turned attention from team research for building a model of the United States to doing one for world trade in order to investigate the international transmission mechanism.

The Texas Energy Office's Loan Star Program has reduced building energy consumption and taxpayers' energy costs through the efficient operation of public buildings, saving taxpayers more than $172 million through energy efficiency projects.

It was like falling off a building and suddenly, bang, you hit the bottom. The first time it happened was on an ordinary day at home. I was taking down some curtains. I took one step, turned around, took another step and then I fell and hit my head hard on the rowing machine.

The groups that have awarded them are all a little different. It's a little hard to single out any one for that, but I think the dedication of this building would have to go toward the top of the list.

By building relations we create a source of love and personal pride and belonging that makes living in a chaotic world easier.

In this case we're building a corner to stretch a fence and hang a gate. It had a real purpose in the ranch here. I needed to do this. But at the same time, it made a beautiful structure.

Whoever places his trust into a system will soon be without a home. While you are building your third story, the two lower ones have already been dismantled.

What you make up in your heads sticks if it's good, falls out if it's bad. If we still remember something a day after we made it up, it might be worth building on.

He was mostly leaping tall buildings in the beginning. There were cases where he would leap off a tall building or swoop down, and at that point he would look like he was flying, I suppose. It was just natural to draw him like that.

Rome has not seen a modern building in more than half a century. It is a city frozen in time.

But I think that the spirit of protectionism would be the grave of European cinema. You cannot protect something by building a fence around it and thinking that this will help it survive.

The Bar Room has a corner table placed strategically at a point diagonally across from the entrance. the table of tables in the setting of settings in the building of buildings. In the religion of lunch, this is the holy of holies.

We're at unique point in history where the things that we are building are going to significantly impact our social, political, economical, and personal lives.