I need to take advantage of life right now. If I don't, it will pass me by. It's just that easy.

Then you kind of look around and say, what else can life do? Does it have to be negative? You become impressed with -- it's changeable and things don't have to be the way they are.

Like my mother, I was always saying, 'I'll fix my life one day.' It became clear when I saw her die without fulfilling her dreams that my time was now or maybe never.

They get you talked about as a filmmaker. They'll give you film life, and that will give you life as a filmmaker.

My mother used to sit at the foot of my bed, and she would share her dreams with me.

One point of view gives a one dimensional world. (Liz Murray.. a brilliant homeless teen who got a scholarship to an Ivy League school).