That's my policy - to be positive, to just hope that something will happen. If you start with all your fears, your receptivity is for the negative.

When I was growing up, there were a lot more arts in the public schools. Politically, America has screwed up on that.

Because my parents had given me tremendous respect, trust, and freedom as a child, I knew how to take responsibility for myself. If you're constantly being told "No, don't do that" or "We don't trust you," you can't develop that responsibility.

Americans in particular are myopic. They're not traveling as much. When you were a college student, the next thing you would do on graduation was to take a year off and travel. That's what I did. I went to Indonesia.

We're really having a problem right now in our culture. I haven't seen one movie lately in which the story and visuals have been equally good.

People have become so literal because they're used to reality-based television.

I received from my experience in Japan an incredible sense of respect for the art of creating, not just the creative product. We're all about the product. To me, the process was also an incredibly important aspect of the total form.