Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge number of people who are not going to know what to do. But within every dystopia there's a little utopia.

Sometimes it can be bad to have too much family. Everybody gets involved in your problems, giving their opinion, gossiping, and making drama. But when bad things happen, they will be there to support you.

First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.

There are a lot of directors I'd still love to work with. Paul Thomas Anderson is someone I'd love to work with. I think Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is very talented. Ang Lee is very talented. I mean, there are a lot of people. There are many great directors out there.

Do not be ashamed of help.

Don't be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you've been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?

But I must at the very beginning lay down this principle—friendship can only exist between good men.

n the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a second self......

As for you, my young friends, I urge you to strive for virtue, for without it friendship cannot exist. And friendship, aside from virtue, is the greatest thing we can find in life.

I worked with Diodotus the Stoic, who made his residence in my house, and after a life of long intimacy died there only a short time ago.

But of all the bonds of fellowship, there is none more noble, none more powerful than when good men of congenial character are joined in intimate friendship.

Come away with me, he said, we will live on a desert island. I said, I am a desert island. It was not what he had in mind.