I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them.

My success wasn't based on how I could push down everybody that was around me. My success was based on how much I could push everybody up.

Over time I began to realize that the level of cinema criticism in the last part of XX century in the United States was pretty low. The institution itself is not what it's supposed to be, and I realized that I didn't need to take that seriously.

I'd like to see education play a larger role in our daily lives, have people come to a larger understanding - a "bigger picture" understanding - of how we fit into the world, and how we fit into the universe. Not necessarily thinking of ourselves, but thinking of others.

He took me from not being able to write a word in terms of writing screenplays to being the king of wooden dialogue.

In 3-D filmmaking, I can take images and manipulate them infinitely, as opposed to taking still photographs and laying them one after the other. I move things in all directions. It's such a liberating experience.

We are all living in cages with the door wide open.