In tyranny lies only failure. Empower every man and you will gain strength.

We can't repay our good luck with bad grace. It invites darkness.

I can rely on me [being a director], unlike some actors. I never got anything less than what I needed from the lead actor.

I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack.

I always say I've given 24 insufficient performances and I'm looking forward to the time in my life when I'll do something that I think is good. There's always stuff you can do better, stuff that maybe you didn't uncover enough. But if you do something that you truly believe is perfect, then that's got to be the last movie you do.

It's such an intimate experience, being a director, artistically. It's deep and it's satisfying and it's wonderful, on so many levels, but it's also really scary.

My definition [of genius] would be about being completely involved in your art form. So that's outside of sciences. Within the arts it's about taking people on a journey, being able to involve me completely-whether you're singing a song, whether it's in the theater, whether you're dancing-if you can make me forget I'm sitting in a seat, that's my definition of genius.