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.
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.
We have this thing as human beings: we have a profound need for story. That's what kids need.
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
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.
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.
