I think I just have this need to be a storyteller. That's why I wasn't a great dancer - I couldn't articulate a story. I was a better choreographer. I have the need to to just express myself in that way. I can't explain it.
We have this thing as human beings: we have a profound need for story. That's what kids need.
All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by. . . .
There is always a reason why, and I need to tell the stories.
But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes.
I'm not the greatest reader. I feel like I have a bit of dyslexia or something, and that's probably why I became a filmmaker. I have the need to communicate, the need to tell stories; and the need to understand stories led me to movies.
I connect to the tradition of Irish storytelling. And I think there is something - I can't put my finger on it - something genetic there. Maybe just a need to tell stories.
