The poet W.H. Auden wrote that people come in two varieties: Utopians, who imagine the perfect world in the future, and Edenists, who, if life is not perfect now, believe it once was in the past.

The way to do fieldwork is never to come up for air until it is all over.

Film actors are, by nature, more complicated than stage actors.

We kept my middle schooler home from school for three days before we turned in our final draft because she was so mean and so brutal at editing out all the cheesy bits. She would roll her eyes and make fun of us, and it was what we needed.

I can't drag myself away from 'Final Cut Pro.' It is a digital video editing system. I am obsessed with it, but I am always away from home, and I can't use it.

New diseases like SARS and bird flu cause anxiety in the community. People get worried, some to the extent that it even affects their health. You feel very sad, and yet you must carry on and maintain your cool in very trying and difficult moments. You have to tough it out.