"Find out what you're afraid of and go live there."

"The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open."

"I try to forget about the expectation that's out there and the audience listening for the next thing so that I'm not trying to please them. I've spent a huge amount of time not communicating with those folks and denying that they exist."

"Some of the best ideas I get seem to happen when I'm doing mindless manual labor or exercise. I'm not sure how that happens, but it leaves me free for remarkable ideas to occur."

"Neutrality is a negative word. It does not express what America ought to feel. We are not trying to keep out of trouble we are trying to preserve the foundations on which peace may be rebuilt."

"To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting."

"Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed."

"When I made 'Real Steel,' the director actually had the robots in the monitor, so he knew where everything was. So technically, there's been advancements. But at the end of the day, movies are about story and characters, so all the other stuff is great, but unless you have those two elements, then you've got nothing."