Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.

Time is what the depressed and panicked lack.

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

Who was the real Hitchcock? I interviewed him once and haven't a clue.

You can't just tell actors, especially young ones, to 'act happy' and expect them to do it. They must in some essential way be happy.

Last year, I reviewed a nine-hour documentary about the lives of Mongolian yak herdsmen, and I would rather see it again than sit through The Frighteners.

I find that when I am actually writing, I enter a zone of concentration too small to admit my troubles.