And yet, even so, there is a way to find happiness. That is to be curious about all of the interlocking events that add up to our lives. To notice connections. To be amused or perhaps frightened by the ways things work out. If the universe is indifferent, what a consolation that we are not.

Art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.

It is human nature to look away from illness. We don't enjoy a reminder of our own fragile mortality.

My motto: 'No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing.'

Here is a children's film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy. A film with no villains. No fight scenes. No evil adults. No fighting between the two kids. No scary monsters. No darkness before the dawn. A world that is benign. A world where if you meet a strange towering creature in the forest, you curl up on its tummy and have a nap.

Movies are like a machine that generates empathy.

I am proudly a liberal. I am also patriotic, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values.