What I don't know for sure is what's next for me - and I don't mind that. I know for sure that whatever happens will be interesting and will challenge and excite me.

There is incredible power in the arts to inspire and influence.

In a way, artists are shamans, facilitators who take what's there, channel it through themselves, then put it out there for people to appreciate.

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.

When I was thinking about The Lion King, I said, we have to do what theater does best. What theater does best is to be abstract and not to do literal reality.

Children have an easier ability to tap into the surreal than adults do, in a funny kind of way.

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.