I start asking a lot of questions about my own life, and it's not necessarily fun, but it's a good exercise.
— Brad Pitt
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.
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.
I grew up on particular movies that said something to me as a kid from Missouri, movies that showed me places I'd yet traveled, or different cultures, or explained something, or said something in a better way than I could ever say. I wanted to find the movies like that. It was less about a career than finding the films I wanted to see.
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.
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.
Certainly the attrition rate of Hollywood couples looms large.
I get enraged when people start telling other people how to live their lives.
I feel like I have to share whatever I can. You're culpable if you don't act.
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.
You want to stake your own claim. You don't want to be called a copycat.
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 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.
My training is documented on film.
If I'm going to work, I want to work with my wife.
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.
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've always been at war with myself, for right or wrong. I don't know how to explain it more. It's universal. Some people are better at dealing with it, and they sleep with no pain - not pain, arguments. I've grown quite comfortable with being at war.
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.
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.
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.
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 certainly feel injustice. I'm no foreigner to that, whether it's real or perceived.
I have this fantasy of my older days, painting or sculpting or making things. I have this fantasy of a bike trip to Chile. I have this fantasy of flying into Morocco. But right now, it's about getting the work done and getting home to family. I have an adventure every morning, getting up.
Happiness is overrated. There has to be conflict in life.
In some ways, I'm still a kid from Missouri and Oklahoma, and I'm trying to find my way.
Once you get older, you get a little closer to yourself, intimate.
To leave home, it's got to be worth leaving.
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 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.
With sons and fathers, there's an inexplicable connection and imprint that your father leaves on you.
It took me a good decade of hiding in my house and not going outside to even, like, get my arms around this idea of celebrity, where suddenly people are looking for you to pick your nose or get a shot of you kissing some woman. It's a very discombobulating thing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If I'm gonna spend however long it takes to make a movie, give up 14 hours a day for however many weeks or months, then it's very important for me to know that I'm working with people who I respect and enjoy and that we're going for something together.
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 think someone's conversation, whether in e-mail or in person, should be private.
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 was so intent on trying to find a movie about an interesting life, but I wasn't living an interesting life myself.
My affliction has been... I can make something or draw something or design something better than I can explain it.
I've been no stranger to change.
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.
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.
There are no Hallmark cards that define the next chapter, or the value of a history together.
