In America we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world the sub-continental world but it's not a conversation it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories no one will tell them' is my mantra.

I often begin movies with music in my head it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories and I like the abrasive clang the contrasting of sounds and cultures.

The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words.

I grew up on the crime stuff. Spillane Chandler Jim Thompson and noir movies like Fuller Orson Welles Fritz Lang. When I first showed up in New York to write comics back in the late 1970s I came with a bunch of crime stories but everybody just wanted men in tights.

A lot of the themes of my movies the actual stories come from tabloid stories.

All through my life what I've loved doing is watching movies. I love the escapism of film I love stories. So it is incredible to be able to be in them as much as I am to see them from the first stitch in a costume to the end product.

I'm a sci-fi girl. If I can have anything in life I'd want tons of great science-fiction movies and stories. It's so progressive beautiful and imaginative.

I really unfortunately don't have tons of hilarious Sundance stories because really I am not the biggest fan of hanging out but the reason why is because I never go see other people's movies and I think that's the way to do it.

I think ever since I was preteen I wanted to direct movies and tell stories.

I think romance is a tool comedy is a tool and drama is a tool. I really just want to tell stories that challenge the viewer move people make you laugh perhaps push an idea about being open-minded but never settle on a genre or an opinion. I hate genre. I like movies that are original in their approach.

Most of the time it's the role. Sometimes it's the story and sometimes it just the paycheck. It's the little movies that come out as stories or the fact that I have work to go out you know what I'm saying you can only be out so long without work you start getting antsy.

A lot of the struggle I had with movies is I really loved moments and tones and feelings in a scene and I loved creating those but I never really had great stories to string them together.

We hear the stories every day now: the father who puts on a suit every morning and leaves the house so his daughter doesn't know he lost his job the recent college grad facing up to the painful reality that the only door that's open to her after four years of study and a pile of debt is her parents'. These are the faces of the Obama economy.

I loved fantasy but I particularly loved the stories in which somebody got out of where they were and into somewhere better - as in the 'Chronicles Of Narnia ' 'The Wizard Of Oz ' 'The Phantom Tollbooth ' the 'Dungeons & Dragons' cartoon on Saturday morning in the '80s.

The biases the media has are much bigger than conservative or liberal. They're about getting ratings about making money about doing stories that are easy to cover.

It was definitely a part of our life. I mean my mom had both her brothers and her fiancee in Vietnam at the same time so it wasn't just my dad's story it was my mom's story too. And we definitely grew up listening to the stories.

My mom used to tell me stories at night read books to me - and I read 'em over and over and over again. And you know what I learned from that? I went back and looked at everything - Why do I like reading the same stories over and over and over again? What was I some kind of nincompoop? No - the narrative gave me connection with my mom.

My mother worked in factories worked as a domestic worked in a restaurant always had a second job.

I hate this fast growing tendency to chain men to machines in big factories and deprive them of all joy in their efforts - the plan will lead to cheap men and cheap products.

I was proud to share the stories of my friends at Georgetown Law who have suffered dire medical consequences because our student insurance does not cover contraception for the purpose of preventing pregnancy.

Although awareness of cancer's prevalence in the United States improves and medical advances in the field abound pancreatic cancer has largely been absent from the list of major success stories.

I'm receiving 300 to 500 letters every week from people telling me that God used my stories to save their marriage or to introduce them to Christ or to heal a relationship that had been broken.

The whole Haley-Nathan marriage deal was a pretty good twist huh? I hope we got all of you with it. That particular story line even suprised me when I read it it's a good one and it'll provide for some good stories to come.

Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything. If you don't write stories you love you'll never make it. If you don't write stories that other people love you'll never make it.