To me the director's job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

Traffic is about drugs. As detailed a portrait as I can muster about what is happening in the drug world, from top to bottom, from policy to how things move on the street.

But my sense in talking to people when I travel is that the film business is not that dissimilar from a lot of other businesses.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

To me the director's job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

I like to make all kinds of movies. I'd do 'Ocean's Thirteen' with the right script.

Another thing that really excites me: I'd like to do multiple versions of the same film.

I love caper films.

Reality shows are all the rage on TV at the moment, but that's not reality, it's just another aesthetic form of fiction.

The key is, if you're not monkeying around with the script, then everything usually goes pretty well.

I'm in the process of working out an arrangement to make some very, very, very small films in the midst of all these films and maybe that will help. But you get tired of talking. You just want to do it.

Maybe I'll paint, do photography, just something else. I can see that.

I'm sure some people will say, 'Why do this?' And my response is, 'Why wouldn't you?' The film business in general is using a model that is outdated and, worse than that, inefficient.

Well, it's 15 years since Sex, Lies And Videotape, and if you hang around long enough you're having the same arguments with just a new set of people every few years and it gets boring.

I look at other filmmakers and see skills in them that I wish I had but I know that I don't. I feel like I have to work really hard to keep myself afloat, doing what I do. But I find it pleasurable.

I guess why the Ocean's films are hard for me is because on the one hand you have to make sure the performances are there, but on the other hand it's a film that demands, to my mind, a very layered and complex visual scheme. That takes a lot of time to figure out.

A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit.

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

I had more fun making Traffic than either of the Ocean's films.

I just produced Criminal, this remake of Nine Queens, and one of the things that appealed to me about Nine Queens is that it was a performance piece, and that's the most fun.

It's pretty clear to me that working as a director for hire agrees with me. I like it. The films that have come out of that, I personally like better than the ones that didn't.

I know why we can't have a frank discussion with our policymakers - if you're in the government or in law enforcement you cannot acknowledge that drugs are anything but inherently evil and morally wrong.

I guess I didn't feel confident enough to be searching in a big public way. I was very content at the time to toil in obscurity on things that I thought might point me in certain directions or teach me certain things - not knowing what that would be.

When things go right it's hard to figure out why, but when things go wrong it's really easy.

I don't consider myself to be particularly gifted in the way that other filmmakers are gifted.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

Making a film that's supposed to be fun to watch is really hard - that's the weird irony of it.

When you're sent something and read it, either you can see it while you read it, or you can't.

I'm very comfortable with failure. I'm very comfortable being the guy who disappoints people.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

Warner Bros. has talked about going out with low-cost DVDs simultaneously in China because piracy is so huge there. It will be a while before bigger movies go out in all formats; in five years, everything will.

The great thing about the business is how Darwinian it is. We have to swim or die - if you are found wanting over a period of time, you've either got to change what you're doing or find something else to do.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

In Full Frontal and K Street, I learned to take advantage of the mobility that digital provides.

The brief flashbacks are sun kissed summery and optimistic. Its the only place in the movie you will see red yellow orange or any vibrant colors.

I have done things politically, and I've been running a business at the same time, but I sort of joke that to some extent I do more than most legislators have done in their whole careers, and I've been doing it as a part-time job.

I believe that if a man does a job as well as a woman, he should be paid as much.

Don't let ambition get so far ahead that it loses sight of the job at hand.

You really should not do this job unless you're willing to put in that enormous amount of effort. You should not do the job unless you're willing to take risks. And you shouldn't do the job unless you're willing to lose the job, too.

In 1975 I decided that there was no future in flying (airline jobs were impossible to get, and who wants a job where you are judged only by seniority?) and headed off to grad school.

If we wait for the U.S. to do something, we will be waiting for a very long time. It's Europe, it's Australia, it's the other developed and middle developing countries that have got to do the job.

Even if I don't have a job, I work on plays and scenes.

In the middle of a recession no tax increase is justified because it kills jobs, and any tax increase is a job-killing measure and should be defeated.

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

Well, I think that those of us in public life that are trying to do a good job, and that are faced with this popular new game that the media has of being critical of everything that anybody in public office does probably are thin-skinned.

People may take a job for more money, but they often leave it for more recognition.

I always saw being in a band a full time job.

Promoting job creation and economic growth in the Hudson Valley is one of my top priorities in Congress.

A politician will do anything to keep his job - even become a patriot.