You set out to tell a good story. You don't do it because there is a deep message involved, because the movie is almost always bad when you do that. Your job No. 1 is for it to be entertaining, and if it's inspiring, that is great, too.

Every director knows it is his job to be manipulative. When you make an edit, you are trying to manipulate.

If America had a motto, it would be pull yourself up by the bootstraps, work harder than the next guy, have a goal and achieve it.

Whenever a film has three different release dates, people understandably assume that there must be something wrong with it.

I wish that more people were willing to turn down upfront money in exchange for doing things that are more original. Turning down a seven-figure check has a ripple effect on the budget, which has a ripple effect on the storytelling. The higher the budget gets, the fewer storytelling risks you're able to take.

Money is a bonus of the job, but it doesn't always make you happy.

The single most remarkable (and revealing) fact of the Obama presidency may very well be the lack of a single prosecution of Wall Street executives for the massive fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis.

We're in this business to make money, but then nobody wants to talk about how much money we're making. That's serious, but nobody will talk about it.