One of the big failings of art schools is that students aren't given any teaching on how to survive as a one-person business, which is what it is.
Our choice is between cynicism and hope.
Faith can cut in so many ways. If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness - that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self criticism aside. There's no reflection.
A billion dollars every week for Iraq, $87 billion for Iraq. We can't get $5 billion for childcare over five years in welfare reform.
What is my calling? What am I supposed to do? I think running for office, public office, can be a divine calling. I mean, Ive wrestled with that very question myself.
Healthcare should be a human right and not a commodity for sale.
The people who have more money and goods than any people in the history of the world spend most of their time worrying about not having enough.
In some ways we live in a world where things appear to be very logical, very rational, and mechanical aspects of our world are rather scientific and rather straightforward.
My philosophy is to make movies with the biggest possible budget that will allow it to be made in an independent fashion.
No one is concerned with Central America anymore. If a million people are facing starvation in northern Nicaragua and Honduras, it's none of our business. Few people even recognize that this situation is in part an outgrowth of US policies going back to the 1980's. Nobody is concerned because Nicaragua is technically stable.
Speaking as a New Yorker, I found [September 11] a shocking and terrifying event, particularly the scale of it.