I look at other filmmakers and see skills in them that I wish I had but I know that I don't. I feel like I have to work really hard to keep myself afloat, doing what I do. But I find it pleasurable.

I'm in the process of working out an arrangement to make some very, very, very small films in the midst of all these films and maybe that will help. But you get tired of talking. You just want to do it.

I'm sure some people will say, 'Why do this?' And my response is, 'Why wouldn't you?' The film business in general is using a model that is outdated and, worse than that, inefficient.

It's pretty clear to me that working as a director for hire agrees with me. I like it. The films that have come out of that, I personally like better than the ones that didn't.

The great thing about the business is how Darwinian it is. We have to swim or die - if you are found wanting over a period of time, you've either got to change what you're doing or find something else to do.

Traffic is about drugs. As detailed a portrait as I can muster about what is happening in the drug world, from top to bottom, from policy to how things move on the street.

Warner Bros. has talked about going out with low-cost DVDs simultaneously in China because piracy is so huge there. It will be a while before bigger movies go out in all formats; in five years, everything will.

Well, it's 15 years since Sex, Lies And Videotape, and if you hang around long enough you're having the same arguments with just a new set of people every few years and it gets boring.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit.

Another thing that really excites me: I'd like to do multiple versions of the same film.

But my sense in talking to people when I travel is that the film business is not that dissimilar from a lot of other businesses.

I don't consider myself to be particularly gifted in the way that other filmmakers are gifted.

I had more fun making Traffic than either of the Ocean's films.

I like to make all kinds of movies. I'd do 'Ocean's Thirteen' with the right script.

I love caper films.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

I'm very comfortable with failure. I'm very comfortable being the guy who disappoints people.

In Full Frontal and K Street, I learned to take advantage of the mobility that digital provides.