Old Rose: It's been 84 years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.

If you want to move through a virtual reality it’s called a video game, it’s been around forever.

The films that influenced me were so disparate that there's almost no pattern.

The literature now is so opaque to the average person that you couldn't take a science-fiction short story that's published now and turn it into a movie. There'd be way too much ground work you'd have to lay. It's OK to have detail and density, but if you rely on being a lifelong science-fiction fan to understand what the story is about, then it's not going to translate to a broader audience.

I probably spend more time writing than reading science fiction. I find that science-fiction literature is so reactive to all the literature that's gone before that it's sort of like a fractal. It's gone to a level of detail that the average person could not possibly follow unless you're a fan. It iterates upon many prior generations of iterations.

I want to challenge all of you as people of deep conscience, people who are environment stewards of the earth and oceans ... By changing what you eat, you will change the entire contract between the human species and the natural world.

We have a great responsibility. Whatever we make will become the truth, the visual reality that a generation will accept.