When we criticize in Iran the actions of the government the fundamentalists say that we and the Bush Administration are in the same camp. The funny thing is that human rights activists and Mr. Bush can never be situated in the same group.

My parents are both very funny but they're also relatively soft-spoken normal human beings while I'm just a lunatic. I don't know where this loud ballsy hammy ridiculousness came from. I'm just glad I followed my goals and my parents did too. It's not like we even had a plan when I dragged my mom to Los Angeles.

Being funny with a funny voice is more my comfort zone a broader character that I try to humanize a kind of silly or wacky persona that I try to fill in.

It's a required part of your film history to know who Woody is. His movies are so wonderful and not just funny but so insightful about human behavior.

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.

When human judgment and big data intersect there are some funny things that happen.

I don't hate humanity and I'm not interested in people who do. Although it's funny actually some of my favorite writers really do. Like Martin Amis. My dirty secret. 'London Fields' is one of my favorite books ever. And it's indefensible! But he's so funny... I forgive him everything.

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle I no longer despair for the future of the human race.

I can tell you dearest friend that if it became known how much friendship love and a world of human and spiritual references I have smuggled into these three movements the adherents of programme music - should there be any left - would go mad with joy.

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment is a secret which but few discover.