I have a lot of ideas and I want to be able to work. To me, it's like one of these contests where you get five minutes in a supermarket to take anything off the shelves you want and try to fill your cart up as much as you can. That's the way I look at my work.

Ultimately the Force is the larger mystery of the universe. And to trust your feelings is your way into that.

Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.

'American Graffiti' was unpleasant because of the fact that there was no money, no time, and I was compromising myself to death.

I was a terrible student in high school and the thing that the auto accident did - and it happened just as I graduated, so I was at this sort of crossroads - but it made me apply myself more, because I realized more than anything else what a thin thread we hang on in life, and I really wanted to make something out of my life.

That had always been my purpose: to get people back in touch with what makes us so valuable as a human race.

The theme that runs through my movies is the fact that we create barriers for ourselves....because we say, Well, I can't do that. But in the end, you can't do it unless you can imagine yourself succeeding at it.