"Drama lives on conflict. If you're trying to deal with social issues seriously, there's no way of avoiding violence, which is so present in society."

"It's unbearable when someone changes around you. Just imagine that your life partner changes, then it is difficult to cope with. Or your mother. Or your father. They were strong and now they're like a baby - it's not so funny."

"When I first envisioned 'Funny Games' in the mid-1990s, it was my intention to have an American audience watch the movie. It is a reaction to a certain American cinema, its violence, its naivety, the way American cinema toys with human beings. In many American films, violence is made consumable."

"Film is the manipulative medium par excellence. When you think back on the history of film and the 20th century, you see the propaganda that's been made. So there are moral demands on the director to treat the spectators as seriously as he or she takes himself and not to see them merely as victims that can be manipulated to whatever ends they have."

"When a writer declares that his first book is his best, that is bad. I progress successively from book to book."

"I'm very intrigued by e-books, the topic du jour in the industry today. As a number one bestselling Kindle author, I love the way e-books make an author's backlist accessible to new readers. Of course, price point remains a source of concern. Personally, I don't have any of the answers, but I'm intrigued by the questions."

"I wasn't smart enough to read relationship books when I was coming up. I learned everything the hard way."

"One thing that happens on the 'Newsroom' is that every time a real story does get incorporated into the show, there's always an angle that's provided that hasn't really been dealt with yet."