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" We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment. "

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" You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut. "

" Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly. "

" I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society. "

" I have never pretended to be the best Scientologist, but I openly and vigorously defended the church whenever it was criticized, as I railed against the kind of intolerance that I believed was directed against it. I had my disagreements, but I dealt with them internally. "

" All my work is partly biographical. I mean, 'Crash' was absolutely that, absolutely. But you just wouldn't recognize me in most of those characters. But I was in every single one of those characters in 'Crash,' because those were all fears that I had felt. Things that I had thought in my deepest, darkest heart. "

" My kids paid the price for my career. We can say it's for our family, but it almost never is. It's about us. It's just some of us can pretend better than others. "

" You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer. "

" We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets. "

" I just asked myself, what piece of that man's soul did he just chew off and swallow to get next week's assignment? You know, just to live, just to work as an artist, or to feed the family? "

" I don't know how much credit I can take for 'Walker, Texas Ranger,' because I only worked on it for three weeks. I re-wrote the pilot, and then my name was on it forever. "

" I'm a deeply broken person, and broken institutions fascinate me. "

" I like it when an actor is secure enough to ask questions, and the director is secure enough not to be threatened by that. "

" I wrote an episode for 'thirtysomething,' and a producer said, 'That's really good, but what is it about? What does it say about you? What questions are you asking yourself?' I had never thought about that. This comment changed who I was, because it made me look at my own soul, the dark corners in my soul, and accept that dark side. "

" I miss my mother very, very much. "

" I like taking genres and subverting them. I did that with 'In the Valley of Elah.' I said, 'Okay, this is just a murder mystery. Relax.' And then, two thirds of the way through, I broke every convention of a murder mystery. "

" My one guiding rule for success in the film world would be, be careful of your friends. "

" A lot of films made me love the movies, everything from Hitchcock to Godard. But the ones that really grabbed me were Costa-Gavras's films like 'Z' and 'State of Siege.' "

" I'm such an antsy type of person. I can't write in a room without other people around. I write in coffee shops. "

" Irish and Italian are my two favourite people. "

" I don't think it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre. "

" I thought 'The King's Speech' was great. "

" Even a modicum of celebrity is hard to deal with. You see it with actors and directors all the time. "

" The worst thing you can do to a filmmaker is to walk out of his film and go, 'That was a nice movie.' But if you can cause people to walk out and then argue about the film on the sidewalk... I think we're all seeking dissension, and we love to affect an audience. "

" In Scientology, in the Ethics Conditions, as you go down from Normal through Doubt, then you get to Enemy, and, finally, near the bottom, there is Treason. "

" I moved to Hollywood when I was 22. I was married. I had a kid right away. And I had worked as a furniture mover amongst various other jobs, and I'd work eight, ten hours a day to support my family - and I'd come home and write for two hours a night or two and a half, or three hours a night. "

" Every 10 years, I know less about love and relationships. The smarter I get, the less I know. "

" I try not to think of actors as I'm writing because I think you do them a disservice by writing for things they've already done. "

" I made a very good living as a bad writer. I wrote a lot of comedies, 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' while all my friends were doing the good shows, like 'Cheers,' but I loved it because I got to be a working writer in Hollywood. "

" I don't think I'm against all wars, but you'd have to have a damn good reason to send your son or daughter to fight, or to go yourself. So often, we are lied to and manipulated by our governments for their own very cynical reasons. "

" We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'. "