“A lot of what I think I do as a director is try to give everything over to the actor. So I disappear.”

“All history is defined by shifting modes of reality and time and how things change. That's what I love about cinema. It changes in the moment.”

“All of my films have been autobiographical - it's all I've got to go on.”

“As a filmmaker, you realize that places have character based on their history as much as a face does or an actor does.”

“As a gay person, my life has been marginalized.”

“As independent filmmakers, we are actually deeply dependent on each other. The Spirit Awards are a public expression of those bonds, the intricate set of relationships and histories that we filmmakers depend on to make our most personal work.”

“Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.”

“By 15, I was lucky enough to find the theater.”

“By 1988, I was living in New York myself.”

“Capturing intimacy is pretty much the only thing I'm interested in. That's what excites me and what I find beautiful in movies personally - that almost obscene sense that we shouldn't be this close to these people. I find that very inviting and meaningful as an audience member.”

“Every film is hard to fund.”

“Everyone wants to belong, and everyone needs to belong in order to make a career on some level.”

“Everything encourages you not to tell stories of gay lives. There is no economy yet for that kind of cinema.”

“Fighting bitterness can be a full-time job.”

“For gay people, we learned about our lives in secrecy and a lot of fear.”

“For me, every film is actually a form of documentary.”

“'How to Survive a Plague' is history-telling at its best. It's a film I'll show my two children, now toddlers, when they are old enough to understand. It's a movie that I cannot forget.”

“I always think of my films within the context of where aesthetics meet economics. That's the nature of making art - not being naive about what is possible and getting what you need to tell the story you want to tell.”

“I came to N.Y.C. in 1988 and got very involved with Act Up. I also started making movies, including two very gay shorts, 'Vaudeville' and 'Lady.' It was the height of the AIDS epidemic, and New York City was both dying and very alive at the same time.”

“I could not - and I still cannot - see a sustainable career as a filmmaker in which I focus fully on our gay stories.”

“I don't rehearse with my actors... the first rehearsal is the first time we turn the camera on... Sydney Pollack never rehearsed his actors, and I found out that's allowed... so you film reactions; you don't create them.”

“I don't think I'd ever start making a film until I had both the intimacy with the subject and the distance to make it live in a certain way.”

“I find the stuff that is exciting to me are the films coming out of Taiwan and Iran and France. So I have the feeling I'm not making the films that American distributors want to make.”

“I got into filmmaking in order to tell very personal stories, and in this day and age, the opportunity seems all the more precious.”

“I grew up in the 1960s in Memphis, and my father was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. I was born three years before Martin Luther King was killed, and I think that history of civil action was something that I had in my blood.”

“I grew up thinking there was something called 'independent film,' which I wouldn't necessarily have had access to if there wasn't Sundance.”

“I have been very influenced by the director Maurice Pialat, who I continue to be in conversation and conflict with and get inspiration from.”

“I like a film that makes the audience feel like they are in the middle of life as it is moving, and in a way, they are catching up. They are thrown into things.”

“I realize I have strength as an artist and professional by embracing my difference instead of what makes me the same.”

“I think it's interesting: What is the generational effect of the experience of being a gay person in America? For my generation, it was very difficult.”

“I think there's a fear of difference in American cinema.”

“I'm not interested in a film about deceit anymore. I think I was always invested in deceit on some level. But it no longer compels me the way it did for so many years.”

“Intimacy is something to be cherished, and intimacy is not something to be afraid of.”

“It's easy to make a film, but it's hard to make a career of being a filmmaker.”

“I've always been interested in how the individual comes to know and accept him or herself, which I think has been hard for me.”

“I've been close to two or three couples, gay and straight, who have been together for 45 years.”

“I've been hiding crucial events in my life since I was 13.”

“I've made four films about the destructive nature of relationships, of secrets and lies, and I think I'm no longer interested in that subject - which is a wonderful relief.”

“Most simply but profoundly, I chose to live an honest life, which I think as a gay person is not a given.”

“Music Box has proven itself in a few short years to be a cutting edge distributor with a sophisticated understanding of both the market and cinema.”

“My films might have been queer - because I was - but they were not gay.”

“New York grabbed me too hard, as did adulthood.”

“One of the biggest things that happens to many people when they have kids is that you suddenly realize that you're not going to last forever. You know there is another generation who are the heroes of their own stories, and that is humbling.”

“Seeing the road show of 'A Chorus Line' in 1977 at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Memphis was a life-changing event for me: there were gay people, on the stage, and they all lived in New York.”

“There's a lot of things lost in the Digital Age.”

“What I loved about 'Goodfellas' is that it's a film about bad behavior - but told with great energy and without judgment - but it doesn't actually shy away from the consequences of that behavior in the characters' lives, which I think is similar in 'Keep the Lights On.'”

“What's interesting to me is the distinction between my old life and my present life.”

“Why do people stay in relationships that are tough from almost the very beginning?”

“Without community events like NewFest, I don't think we'd have a queer cinema in America.”

“You can be aware of the passing of time without being nostalgic.”

“You can only begin to share life well when you think well of yourself.”

“You can understand why good publicists go on to run distribution companies: because the creativity involved is complex and nuanced.”