“Time and again, American regulators have appeared to be paralyzed by corruption in cases when most or all of the banks have been caught raiding the same cookie jar. From fraudulent sales of mortgage-backed securities, to Enronesque accounting, to Jefferson-County-style predatory swap deals, to municipal bond bid-rigging, the strategy of American regulators has been to accept "Well, everybody was doing it” as a mitigating factor when negotiating settlements, where that should have made them want to crack the whip even harder.“
–Taibblog, July 7

“To all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace.”
–Patricia Highsmith, New Year’s Eve Toast, 1947

“In life and in movies, you can usually guess what someone is going to say—you can actually hear it—before they say it. But if you undercut that just a little, it can make you fall off your chair. It’s small and simple like that. You’re always trying to get your distractions out of the way and be as calm as you can be [breathes in and out slowly], and emotion will just drive the machine. It will go through the machine without being interrupted, and it comes out in a rhythm that’s naturally funny. And that funny rhythm is either humorous or touching. It can be either one. But it’s always a surprise. I really don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth.”
–The Venkman School of Acting

“They would say, ‘Look, you could have somebody piss against the wall
for two hours and call it Alien 3 and it would still do 30 million
dollars worth of business.’ That’s the impetus to make these movies,
you can’t keep the people away.”

“When you direct a [music] video, people give you the money and say,
‘Call us when you’re done.’ Movies aren’t like that. I think you’re
always in over your head on your first movies, even if it’s a very
small movie. All you can do is lick your wounds when it’s over.”

“I have many, many friends who are vice-presidents and presidents of production at movie studios and they never understand this very simple thing: My name’s going to be on it. Your name’s not on it. Your point of view is as valid as any member of the audience. But it’s a different thing when you’re name’s on it, when you have to wear it for the rest of your life, when it’s on a DVD and it’s hung around your fucking neck. It’s your albatross.”
–Thanks, Fox