"I place myself in situations where a lot of people are going to be, and bring a particular body of work that reflects the people already there. You have to study your subject."

“Profit per se is not my motive.”

Source : "I Think It Would Be Fun to Run the New Republic: Chris Hughes as Charles Foster" by Tim Carmody, www.wired.com. March 9, 2012.

“Even Doctors Without Borders in West Africa are moving the fatality rate from 50 percent down to 30 percent-I bet we can do substantially better than that here.”

“One has to guard against a formula that is good for everything, that can interpret reality in addition to the other arts, and that rather than creating can only result in a style, or a stylization.”

“Britain is no longer one of the world's price setters. It is painful. It is a challenge to us in government to explain all that, and it is a pity that the political class is not preparing the public for it to understand how massive the problem is.”

Source : Interview with Aida Edemariam, www.theguardian.com. May 20, 2011.

“Even if you make a movie about a criminal locked up in prison, you may not support him as a criminal, but you have to like him on some level. You have to love your protagonist and respect him. He will only open his heart to you when he believes that you are treating him with respect, with love. Only then will there be no more walls between the filmmaker and the protagonist.”

“I use are provisional terms, and they usually put any proper nouns in critical distance. I'm in a tradition of people who resist naming, fixity. That means it's a tradition of people who insist on mobility, who defy proper nouns and genres and those kinds of things. When I push back against the word 'jazz' it's because I've learned that from many, many elders who think that way. I'm not just being a jerk.”

“Do not cry for me, Azrael. Do not waste your tears. You made your decision. And this is mine. Sacrifice seems to be my destiny. A funny thing for a selfish man, isn't it? They always called me weak back then...”

“My voice, I'm blessed to have it.”