The rule of thumb for a director or producer - which prevents them from just sticking their names on everything - is that you have to contribute substantially more than 50 percent of the character dialogue and story.

When you grow up in Chicago, your whole family is counting on you to go to college and do something distinguished. The last thing you're thinking is that you're going to make a career in show business.

When a director writes, there's a compulsory arbitration. You have a right to challenge any of the arbitrators, but they pick three of four arbitrators who read all the drafts with no names attached and then allocate credit.

I'd like to think I'd never do a gratuitous fart joke.

Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.

I have no trouble selling out—I’m a benevolent hack, in a certain way—but I want to pander for something I believe in.

Ive never been a big believer in ghosts or the spirit world, and for me, that was part of the point of the movie, ... What the Ghostbusters represented was the triumph of human courage and human ingenuity. People create their own monsters. Our fears come from within us, not outside.