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" There's nothing in the American dream about character. It's a serious flaw. "

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" A great thing is happening on cable TV. You see characters change in stories over years, like in Tolstoy. That's a whole, thrilling new form that I really enjoy. They are Tolstoy-an in their endless character development and narrative changes... a show like 'Breaking Bad' is astonishing. "

" All the theories that acting is reacting to imaginary circumstances as though they are real, and directing is turning psychology into behavior, those are all stabs at something that can't be taught. All the great actors can't talk about what they do, and they don't want to begin to talk about it. They just do it. "

" In a weird way, when I was looking back, I didn't know I was going to be a director until I was. "

" There are absolutely almost perfect people who experience no guilt; they don't know what it is. They simply do what they need to do - or want to do - next. They see nothing wrong with it. They feel no guilt. They express no guilt. And it's not even certain what harm they do. "

" Comedy is brutal. It's powerful, though. "

" The reason you do this stuff - comedy, plays, movies - is to be seized by something, to disappear in the service of an idea. "

" If you're fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939 and you're a Jew, you don't think so much about relationships. People didn't have a lot of divorces during the Holocaust, for instance. "

" When we talk about reviews, what we are really talking about is just a market report - it's like reading about the new Lexus. You have to know what the guy writing the review cares about to understand his take. Does he like sports cars, or does he like Bentleys? "

" I think the main thing about comedy and humor is that it's impossible and always was impossible to define. "

" You could say that it's in talking movies that inner life begins to appear. You can see things happen to the faces of people that were neither planned nor rehearsed. "

" I keep coming back to it, over and over - adultery and cheating. It's the most interesting problem in the theater. How else do you get Oedipus? That's the first cheating in the theater. "

" Most great plays of the past lose their grip on immediacy; on application to our lives right now. "

" Stand-up comedy is a very hard thing on the spirit. There are people who transcend it, like Jack Benny and Steve Martin, but in its essence, it's soul-destroying. It tends to turn people into control freaks. "

" I asked a shrink: 'Everything is so great. Why am I still so angry?' He said, 'Anger doesn't go away.' I always thought it was kind of a good engine. "

" I had a high school girlfriend whose mother gave us theater tickets, so I saw the second night performance of 'A Streetcar Named Desire.' My girl and I could not get up during intermission, we were so stunned. To this day it's the only thing I've seen on stage that's 100 percent real and 100 percent poetic simultaneously. "

" I was standing right behind Marilyn, completely invisible, when she sang 'Happy birthday, Mr. President.' And indeed, the corny thing happened: Her dress split for my benefit, and there was Marilyn, and yes, indeed, she didn't wear any underwear. "

" It's the hardest thing on earth to like yourself, and then when you do, it's a catastrophe. I mean, the people I know who like themselves - I don't want to see them! "

" 'Catch-22' was a nightmare to make, and everybody was unhappy except me. "

" It's very weird about movies: you never know which ones are going to stay alive and which one are going to be meaningless. When you're there, you couldn't possibly predict it. Some things slowly die, and others slowly stay a while. "

" Things come in waves, and I'm always more interested in places like, for instance, Chicago, where people don't follow fashion. They're not galloping past your window on the way to the latest anything. They're living their lives. You do a play, they come and see it and say, 'That's nice', and then they go home. "

" Improvisation has to do with exploring something like two brothers in a room together. You find out things about situations by discovering the things that they aren't saying. It's a way to explore scenes. Sometimes it's more useful than others, but it's always there to see if there's anything that you might improve. "

" Any good movie is filled with secrets. "

" I used to say that winning the Oscar means being back at the Beverly Hills Hotel at 1 A.M. feeling empty. It's the industry voting. It doesn't come from God. It doesn't change your life, really. "

" I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That's the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein. "

" I don't know that a political climate - as long as it's still a free country - makes much difference in the film world. "

" You want to make money, remake 'Cinderella.' You want to move people, remake the Hippolytus and Phaedra myth. "

" It's not a film-maker's job to explain his technique, but to tell his story the best way he can. "

" The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head. "

" I don't expect anything from reviews. Sometimes I am bemused by them. "

" Never let people see what you want, because they will not let you have it. Never let anybody see what you feel, because it gives them too much power. You're probably better off not showing weakness whenever you can avoid it, because they'll go for you. "