My way of dealing with the world has always been to make fun of it and observe it but not take part in it.That's how I became a writer. But when you have kids, suddenly you have to be part of things. It leads almost to a breakdown because your whole defense mechanism is now really destructive.

Penn [Jillette] and Teller and I get along very well. We can call each other and say, "I'm working on this classic effect. Please, I'd like to do it for a while." We'll all respect it. There are people we don't get along with, but mostly there is a respect amongst the group.

I bring people on to the movies to type and to help punch up and look at things. But a lot of it is, you want fun people to be around, to put you in a good mood, to try and access your creative place.

I love magazines and film critics, so I eat it up. I'm not one of those people who says 'I never read anything.' I generally read all of it.

When Jim Carrey signed on to star in [The Cable Guy], and then they asked me to produce it, I made a very brief plea to direct - which was rejected really as quickly as anything can be.

When I was very young, I started to make friends with much, much older people. So when I was twenty, my friends were fifty, and I never really went through forty because I would watch them die and I would feel younger. So you make friends with older people and you will always feel young no matter what.

Sometimes you need to get away for a few weeks just to figure out who you are again.