I spent a lot of time in London when I was growing up and I've always picked up accents without even really meaning to. It used to get me into trouble as a child.

It's infrequent that that happens - great performances and magical cinematography and great direction.

If you're deluded, you live in a place where there isn't everyone else's reality.

If you're showing people where it's smooth sailing, where is the joke? If you go back to any movie, even a conventional movie, with any comedians, they're either not terribly intelligent or they're not doing something well.

When I was at UCLA, a professor there encouraged me to write, and so I looked into specializing in creative writing in the English Department. And through that, I started writing plays.

When I visited Africa to make my film 'Music by Prudence,' I was struck by how intensely religious and socially conservative Africans were. There was literally a church on every corner.

When I hit a block, regardless of what I am writing, what the subject matter is, or what's going on in the plot, I go back and I read Pablo Neruda's poetry. I don't actually speak Spanish, so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don't know why, but it calms me, calms my brain.

Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.