“Time, I think, is like walking backward away from something: say, from...” — John Crowley Quote

“Time, I think, is like walking backward away from something: say, from a kiss. First there is the kiss; then you step back, and the eyes fill up your vision, then the eyes are framed in the face as you step further away; the face then is part of a body, and then the body is framed in a doorway, then the doorway framed in the trees beside it. The path grows longer and the door smaller, the trees fill up your sight and the door is lost, then the path is lost in the woods and the woods lost in the hills. Yet somewhere in the center still is the kiss. That's what time is like.”

“Fundamentally, whether directing in the theatre or a film, you have to be a good storyteller, regardless of the form. The thing I had to work hardest at was thinking in shots.”

“But I'm very happy to work within tight parameters, and when you know you have an actor for two days, and you have to get that work done in two days, that focuses the mind wonderfully.”

“I write in expectation that readers want to participate in a kind of two-sided game: They are trying to guess what I am up to - what the story's up to - and I'm giving them clues and matter to keep them interested without giving everything away at the start. Even the rules, if any, of the game are for the reader to discover.”

“Men tend to try to struggle to be more rational and reduce things to simplicity more and are more impatient with ambiguity than women are.”

“Always ask yourself what you have achieved within a given time and the product of your life”

“I didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time.”

“The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it's with you all the time.”

“What was the constant?”

“Forse questo bisogna fare nel tempo che resta. Non disperderlo in tentativi vani, ma concentrarsi e sfrondare, più che mai sfrondare. Accettare serenamente la fine.”

“Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.”