We must try to contribute joy to the world.

I am, beneath everything else, a fan. I was fixed in this mode as a young boy and am awed by people who take the risks of performance.

My books are a subject of much discussion. They pour from shelves onto tables, chairs and the floor, and Chaz observes that I haven't read many of them and I never will. You just never know. One day I may - need is the word I use - to read Finnegans Wake, the Icelandic sagas, Churchill's history of the Second World War, the complete Tintin in French, 47 novels by Simenon, and By Love Possessed.

I stopped taking notes on my Palm Pilot and started playing the little chess game.

Blockbusters run the mainstream industry. We may never again have a decade like the 1970s, when directors were able to find such freedom.

A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.

Lebanon was at one time known as a nation that rose above sectarian hatred; Beirut was known as the Paris of the Middle East. All of that was blown apart by senseless religious wars, financed and exploited in part by those who sought power and wealth. If women had been in charge, would they have been more sensible? It's a theory.