Quotes About Perspective

Most Americans approach the problems of the Middle East with a pro-Israeli bias - and rightly so.

The list of problems that we all experience may be endless, but I honestly cannot abide by the rule that, 'He who yells louder is heard.'

One reason most people never stop thinking is that mental frenzy keeps us from having to see the upsetting aspects of our lives. If I'm constantly brooding about my children or career, I won't notice that I'm lonely. If I grapple continuously with logistical problems, I can avoid contemplating little issues like, say, my own mortality.

If you're filming somebody doing something they really want to do, you're probably not very high on their list of problems to deal with. You see James Carville on the phone - he's like that whether you have a camera or not. He isn't doing it just for you, and that's hard to explain.

One of the problems that we have as American journalists is that we bring the American cultural baggage with us and we plop it down and it follows us around and that's just a fact of life.

I'm all for awkward, frank, sometimes painful conversations about things that give everyone a better perspective on who they are in the here and now, and how they want to proceed from there.

A police officer asked me why I agreed to play a Pakistani in my films. I told him that someone has to do different, na. If everyone will become Indian army officer then how the story will proceed?

Let's not give the electoral process so much importance. We have to be cynical about it. Let's give importance to the real democracy that's constructed on a day-to-day basis. That's my hopeful perspective on it.

You can't leave out half the world's experience and expect to address all the problems. Women communicate differently and process information differently, which leads them to resolve conflicts differently.

Fiction and nonfiction, for me, involve very different processes.

As much as people say they love change, they love it when you change - not when you want them to change. Even when it comes to processes they don't like, they're afraid of change.

You see, the thing about us humans is we overcomplicate things. To eat, our food manufacturing processes work on a huge scale, clearing land, rearing livestock, killing it, packaging it. Go big, only to shrink it all back down to small enough to shove in our mouths.

One thing I've heard that makes sense to me about grief is that there's this conception that it's a thing that you process, and then you're done processing it. But really it's not a thing that has an end, it's just what life is like now. You are living with this now, probably forever.

Different cultures produce a different 'cool.' And your perception of 'cool' changes depending on where you are.

When you produce and direct, your movies are different to you. They're not just something you act in.

My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.

It is a myth to think that sometimes creative disagreement doesn't necessarily produce a better result.

It's no fun for me to cover a song and produce it the exact same way as it already exists. When I hear that happening, I have to say, 'What's the point?'

There is an idea of democracy produced by one-sided thinking.

It's funny because, when I was younger, my body was 'better,' but I was more insecure about it. Then, in my 30s, I had children, so I loved my body because of what it had produced.

I am more a friend of art than a producer of painting.

No one wants to hear from the producer. He's the guy by the pool with a cigar in his mouth and a couple of lovelies on his arm. But when you're a director, they want to hear what you have to say about everything - the war, the world.

Dave Fortman really helped me appreciate Rick Rubin as a producer.

Having been an actress before becoming a producer has helped, because I realize the needs.