As far as songwriters, I've always been a fan of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin; those guys mean a lot to me.

My mother is very short - four-eleven. She could walk under tables and never hit her head.

I always thought it was great to be able to make people feel better. It was a little like being God.

Creative people should always be striving, they should always be hungry, they should be looking for the next place to go.

It's good to be the king.

When I was a little kid at home, I thought the whole world was Jewish. For years I thought Roosevelt was Jewish. I loved him. I thought of him as my father. I'm always stunned when I find out that people like Roosevelt and Tolstoy weren't Jewish. How could I love them so much?

Everything starts with writing. And then to support your vision, your ideas, your philosophy, your jokes, whatever, you've gotta perform them and/or direct them, or sometimes just produce them.