I see religion more as a truck stop on your way to figuring out who you are.
What we're seeing now is that greed is still alive and kicking, and banks are bigger than ever.
Seeing the world is the best education you can get. You see sorrow, and you also see great spirit and will to survive.
We sometimes let ourselves be rated too much by others - we put so much emphasis on a paycheck or what a magazine says.
I'm an Obama supporter, no question. But it doesn't mean there's nothing to learn from the other side.
I am obsessively bent on quality - to an unhealthy degree.
The Internet has done a wonderful thing for us. But democracy doesn't work unless people are well informed, and I don't know that we are. People just don't have the time.
So much of making movies is about discovery on the day, what you're figuring out. If you know everything going in, then it's not worth doing - it's already done.
Family - and certainly kids and a stable relationship - is something bigger than yourself. They need you to sit down with them, be there for them when they wake up in the middle of the night.
It might be a very human thing across the board, but we, in America, love a story - we need a story to get involved in. But then everything becomes more about how the story protects a certain perception as we pick sides.
I tell all the young guys, don't make choices because somebody else is telling you it's good from a career-maintenance perspective.
I think someone's conversation, whether in e-mail or in person, should be private.
Certainly the attrition rate of Hollywood couples looms large.
I just don't like the separatism that comes from religion, and, without fail, the need to put your beliefs on someone else. When you start telling someone else how to live, you should check yourself, man.
In some ways, I'm still a kid from Missouri and Oklahoma, and I'm trying to find my way.
You want to stake your own claim. You don't want to be called a copycat.
Once you get older, you get a little closer to yourself, intimate.
To leave home, it's got to be worth leaving.
I'm actually very snobbish about directors. I have to say 'no' all the time. 'No' is the most powerful word in our business. You've got to protect yourself.
My training is documented on film.
I always knew I was going somewhere - going out. I just knew. I just knew. I just knew there were a lot more points of view out there.
If I'm going to work, I want to work with my wife.
I'd say that 'Tree of Life' is not a Christian so much as a spiritual film.
One of the greatest, smartest things I ever did was give my kids Angie as their mom. She is such a great mom. Oh, man, I'm so happy to have her.
'The Assassination of Jesse James' remains one of my favorite films that I've done. You know, it's still labeled a loser.
I think L.A. is impossible. There's just too much media focus. You can't live a normal life.
I always thought that if I wanted to do a family, I wanted to do it big. I wanted there to be chaos in the house.
I always liked film as a teaching tool - a way of getting exposed to ideas that had never been presented to me. It just wasn't on the list of career options where I grew up.
I would love to work in a Bollywood film as there is so much drama and colour in the films there.
Indian cinema seems to be growing very well at its own pace.
I'm 48 now and whatever I get music-wise, I get from my kids and that's it. I don't think I'll ever be hip again!
When I was a little kid we moved to Tulsa, then to St. Louis and, by the time I was in kindergarten, we lived in Springfield, Missouri. There I basically grew up.
I was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Perhaps we don't need these religious concoctions to pillow the fear of death. Just the fact that there is an unknown, and something greater, can bring a feeling of peace. That's enough for me.
You hear stories of intense actors who can't shed their character and who don't know who they are for a week or two after. I'm not that guy, man.
When I received my first paycheck from my now known day job, I spent it on a period Craftsman chair and a Frank Lloyd Wright-wannabe lamp. With my second paycheck, I bought a stereo.
I'm much more experienced now, so I can find films that are interesting quicker and cut out the films that don't really matter. It means more to me now because my kids are going to see them, and I want them to be proud.
I don't think I was all that late in becoming a father.
I'm most comfortable with the Southern dialects, really. It's easy, for example, for me to do Irish because we've got Irish heritage where I come from.
I would say that the directors that I've liked the most are all curious in nature - curious thinkers. They're all big questioners, I would say, first and foremost.
I spent the '90s trying to hide out, trying to duck the full celebrity cacophony.
Heartthrobs are a dime a dozen.
By the time this concert ends this evening, 30,000 Africans will have died because of extreme poverty. By this time tomorrow evening, another 30,000. This does not make sense.
I believe you make your day. You make your life. So much of it is all perception, and this is the form that I built for myself. I have to accept it and work within those compounds, and it's up to me.
I certainly feel injustice. I'm no foreigner to that, whether it's real or perceived.
I guess I just don't see America as separate from Vietnam or Ethiopia. This mentality of 'our team's better than yours' - it's a high school idea. My kids don't see those dividing lines, and I don't want to either.
I've been no stranger to change.
Deregulation created this epidemic of greed which according to the rules of capitalism was OK. Beyond that there was criminal behaviour. There have been no repercussions and it's hard to make your peace with.
I don't feel restless, I just like to travel.
My kids are just waiting for me at home. I'm their father. They're wondering, 'When's Daddy coming home?'
Where I grew up - we started out in Oklahoma and then moved to Missouri - it was considered hubris to talk about yourself. And the downside of that was that ideas rarely got exchanged, or true feelings.
I start asking a lot of questions about my own life, and it's not necessarily fun, but it's a good exercise.
I die really well, by the way. It's one of my strong points. I just take a bullet well.
I didn't realize how interesting the place I come from is until I left home and saw how other cultures handled things differently.
My affliction has been... I can make something or draw something or design something better than I can explain it.
It's those difficult times that inform the next wonderful time, and it's a series of trade-offs, of events, of wins and losses.
I'm sure they're saddened by me, and I get frustrated with them. But I love them, and at the end of the day if they need me or if they need anything, I'm there for them. Family.
Depression is not interesting to watch.
I grew up very religious, and I don't have a great relationship with religion.
To be in love with someone and be raising a family with someone and want to make that commitment and not be able to is ludicrous, just ludicrous.
I've never seen a publicist that could protect me from things, protect anyone from what's going on out there.
I had a very supportive family environment that gave me room to explore and discover things about myself.
You never know when I might decide to work in a Bollywood film and do one of those dance numbers with the whole crew in the backdrop.
Plan B is really a little garage band of three people, and our mandate has been to help get difficult material, that might not otherwise get made, to the screen and to work with directors we respect.
I phoned my grandparents and my grandfather said 'We saw your movie.' 'Which one?' I said. He shouted 'Betty, what was the name of that movie I didn't like?
I have a hard time with morals. All I know is what feels right, what's more important to me is being honest about who you are. Morals I get a little hung up on.
I'm a bit of a loner, you know? I'm more quiet by nature. And coming from, you know, hillbilly country, I'm probably more reserved.
Success is a beast. And it actually puts the emphasis on the wrong thing. You get away with more instead of looking within.
Listen, I've been pretty fortunate. And if I've been underrated, it's actually been something I've been able to work with; I can surprise people. It sets me up to exceed expectations, so I don't mind.
My happiest moment is the day they call wrap and I'm free. I'm not looking back.
It's a violent world we live in. I don't agree with trying to hide that or cover it up.
I've worked with some really great directors, and I'm really choosy about them because they're telling the story at the end of the day.
I was so intent on trying to find a movie about an interesting life, but I wasn't living an interesting life myself.
I feel like I have to share whatever I can. You're culpable if you don't act.
With sons and fathers, there's an inexplicable connection and imprint that your father leaves on you.
I'm drawn to furniture design as complete architecture on a minor scale.
I loved 'Saturday Night Fever' when I was a kid. I couldn't believe people talked that way. It was just a whole new culture I didn't understand. I snuck into it. It was an R-rated film. So it holds a special place.
I get enraged when people start telling other people how to live their lives.
I've always been at war with myself, for right or wrong.
I find all of my performances come down to mathematics in a sense - how do you approach the problem of this character? Sometimes I crack that problem, sometimes I don't.
At the end of the day, we get to be parents, greeting our lovely, crazy children and talking about their day, making sure they brush their teeth, so all the tension from our day is tabled... until the next.
I'm one of those people you hate because of genetics. It's the truth.
Happiness is overrated. There has to be conflict in life.
By nature, I keep moving, man. My theory is, be the shark. You've just got to keep moving. You can't stop.
I'm satisfied with making true choices and finding the woman I love, Angie, and building a family that I love so much.
There are no Hallmark cards that define the next chapter, or the value of a history together.
Actions speak louder than words, and it's no more true than with your kids.
When I was a boy, I would ask about my family history, about my bloodlines. We really didn't know that much. We had a little Indian in us from the Oklahoma Trail of Tears.
Being married means I can break wind and eat ice cream in bed.
Religion works. I know there's comfort there, a crash pad. It's something to explain the world and tell you there is something bigger than you, and it is going to be alright in the end. It works because it's comforting.
I grew up in Oklahoma and Missouri, and I just loved film. My folks would take us to the drive-in on summer nights, and we'd sit on the hood of the car. I just had this profound love for storytelling.
I'd like to design something like a city or a museum. I want to do something hands on rather than just play golf which is the sport of the religious right.
I have very few friends. I have a handful of close friends, and I have my family, and I haven't known life to be any happier.
My life has been about big changes.
In Missouri, where I come from, we don't talk about what we do - we just do it. If we talk about it, it's seen as bragging.
Given a chance, I would like to work with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan because she's a versatile actor.
What's valuable to me has become clearer as I've got older. To me, it's about the value of your time and your day and the value of the people you spend it with.
A family is a risky venture, because the greater the love, the greater the loss... That's the trade-off. But I'll take it all.
You can't be different for different's sake, and this doesn't always work, but you have to separate yourself from the normal read. Of course, it has to be truthful. If it's not truthful, don't waste your time.
You must lose everything in order to gain anything.
I oscillate between agnosticism and atheism.
We're so complex; we're mysteries to ourselves; we're difficult to each other. And then storytelling reminds us we're all the same.
