What is news? It's hard to quantify. Certainly news has changed completely, and the morning shows are not really designed to bring you the news, except to tell you what happened overnight, and the rest of it is a kind of magazine mentality - a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's harder to be an educated and informed citizen.

I was completely unprepared for the public spectacle my private life became, and didn't like it a bit.

I don't think I've mastered anything. I'm still wrestling with the same frustrations, the same issues, the same problems as I always did. That's what life is like.

Baseball was a metaphor for America, both here and in terms of how it was understood by the rest of the world.

I think I did have a reputation for being grumpy. I don't think I'm grumpy. I have opinions. I have an independent vision. I am a purposeful person. But on a daily basis, I think I'm other than grumpy. I think it is a case where I am coming to do business and not there just to be flattered and cajoled and used.

The job's always the same. It involves helping to tell the story and creating an alloy between character and story that serves the film.

You have to have a darkness...for the dawn to come. You have to have experienced difficulties and challenges to fully appreciate and be grateful for success.