I guess you can't really turn a camera on outside in Texas without getting Terrence Malick comparisons.

I love communicating non-verbally. I find great value in it.

When you cut from a long shot to a close shot, you're doing it for a reason, or if you let something stay in long shot for a long take. On the short films, I was teaching myself how to express something personal cinematically, how to use the language of film the best I could.

The very first film I ever made, when I was seven years old, when I got my hands on a camcorder, was a remake of 'Poltergeist,' which I hadn't seen yet because my parents wouldn't allow me to. But I made my own version of it, and it starred my brother in a bed sheet.

The idea that all we have is everything that's come before us, and we are the accumulated weight of our own personal histories, is a beautiful concept. And yet it also leaves you asking, 'Is that all there is? Is that all that defines us? Is that all we have?'

There are some stories - not even stories, some feelings - that you can't accomplish in cinema without using celluloid.

I'm happy to keep making Disney movies.

The first movie I ever saw in the cinema was Walt Disney's 'Pinocchio,' upon its 1984 re-release, which would have put me at three years old.

Grief reveals itself in the most mundane activities, like eating. It's never when you're looking at old pictures.

I never rejected religion, but it just ceased to be an overriding concern in my life.

I know I have trouble watching my own films.

Dramas are incredibly compelling. I feel like 'Silver Linings Playbook' is a drama, but because it's funny, people market it as a comedy.

I love movies. I can't participate in my love of movie-making fully unless I'm producing it.

I think there is a value in leaving the world a little better off, and movies can do that in a minor way.

I love what Paul Thomas Anderson did with 'The Master' with putting out those teasers made up of footage that's not in the movie.

Digital is my safety net. I know how to use it, how to operate those cameras; it makes sense to me. Film is much more mysterious.

You always want your movies to reach the widest audience possible.

Hindsight is the most dangerous thing imaginable for me. I imagine that's the case for most filmmakers. And I would love to be a filmmaker who was an exception to that rule, but I'm certainly not.

I've always endeavored to make movies with my friends.

I like roller coasters that have the one 70-foot drop.

I have always thought of myself as a writer, only because I need things to direct, and I can't not write the things that I direct.

Virginia Woolf's literature really transformed my own ideas about how to formally represent the passage of time and how time affects us. Specifically, the benchmarks are 'Mrs. Dalloway,' 'To the Lighthouse' and 'Orlando,' all of which have time as a central conceit.

I can't solve a puzzle for the life of me - my brain doesn't work that way. But I can take a very simple idea and extrapolate from it and spend time with it and pull things out of it.

When I'm writing a story, I try to reduce it to the barest possible components and go from there.

When you have a lot going on in a scene - whether it be a lot of shots, a lot of coverage, a lot of edits, or just the amount of content - it can cover up a deficit of true feeling. But when you don't have a lot of material to work with, you really have to be sincere with everything. You really have to mean it, because there's nowhere to hide.

I love 'Peter Pan' to death. It's one of the most influential pieces of storytelling in my life. It made a huge impact on how I grew up. I love the cartoon. I love the 2003 version.

The relationships I've had with animals are often some of the most profound. That's why you cry when a dog dies in a movie. The connection is so deep and so profound, and it isn't cluttered by humanity.

With any movie that gets remade, whether I like the remake or not, I'm glad that I can still go watch the original that I love. If the remake is offering something different, I really value that because I'm having a new experience and adding something new to my life.

David Lynch's 'Fire Walk With Me' has a scene in it that scared me so bad that I don't remember it. I blocked the memory out - repeatedly! I've seen the film two or three times, and I can never remember what it is that scares me.

One of my favorite rules of writing: stop whenever it's feeling really good so you have something to look forward to the next day.

I take a great deal of value in things that are done by hand or executed by hand.

I love the Spanish language.

So many of my films involve houses or homes that have been abandoned. People trying to get back home. That's an idea that I keep dealing with.

Making movies is hard for me. Being on set is very trying. I'm not good at being that communicative for that long. Editing is where I'm happiest.

I think, with 'St. Nick,' when you're working with a smaller budget, you have fewer risks involved. You're able to take chances with style and content.

I love film criticism as an art. I think it's a very important thing.

In the past, I'd been sort of a fan of writing a coat hanger of a script, and something I could hang ideas off of.

No two people who make a movie on a certain budget scale are going to achieve the same thing because it just depends on what sort of favors you can call, and what sort of dynamics you can pull in the play.

I'm always making movies for my audiences, but I'm not trying to meet their expectations.

I'm someone who is very sentimental and nostalgic and attached to the homes I lived in, and I think moving is a traumatic experience.

It's tough for me to move on from places, even though I realize that it's not only necessary but very important to be able to do so.

I think all people are familiar with thinking about their death and trying to come to terms with the fact that we will, at some point, no longer exist. The loss of one's ego is very tough to reconcile with; you really have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to wrap your head around the idea of just not existing anymore.

Especially in the Western world, so much of our cultural ideas about grieving is about us, and I think it's important to get beyond that sometimes.

I have a very short attention span, which is funny. I mean, you'd watch me and think that I don't, but I actually do.

I find everything in life a little bit sad, but I also find a great deal of hope everywhere I look.

I never put a premium on making a living. It was never one of those things that was important to me.

I like being able to go to the cinema and sit and spend time observing something without thinking about plot or what one character is saying. I feel like I'm able to connect on a much more profound level.

With 'Pete's Dragon,' Disney was very excited about the movie I wanted to make; they were very supportive of it, and it was a smooth process. I was really surprised by that.

If your financiers care about the movie, they will be involved in a very constructive fashion, but it can get out of hand very quickly, and that is something to be aware of in any type of filmmaking.

'Peter Pan' is a beloved property. It's a property that was brought to the screen many, many times before, so one has to not only justify the reasons why one might make a 'Peter Pan' movie in 2018, 2019 or whatever, but you also have to do justice to the source material.