"All improv turns into anger. All comedy improv basically turns into anger, because that's all people know how to do when they're improvising. If you notice shows that are improvising are generally people yelling at each other."

"I cast unusual people in my movies."

"By the way, movies are like sporting events in that you're as good as the movie you're in. You can sit in a room for 20 years and go do a movie and you can just kill in it and you move to the head of the line again. By the same token, you can do five movies a year and if they're dreck, it's nothing."

"I've always been in the middle of making my own movies, so taking acting jobs that take me away from that has been impossible."

"Raised by an irresponsible mother during the Great Depression in the Jim Crow south, my father was on his own from the age of 13."

"It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label."

"We are a very crafty family."

"Nobody ever worked as hard as my father. My father averaged maybe four hours of sleep at night, and when you're a kid, you don't realize that."