You shouldn't dream your film, you should make it!

My movies more often are told through pictures, not words. But in this case, the pictures took second position to the incredible words of Abraham Lincoln and his presence [...] I was less interested in an outpouring of imagery than in letting the most human moment of this story evolve before us.

I had to get over my fear of running through the world naked and learn to say 'take me or leave me.'

I wouldn't have filmed The Color Purple if the book had been a big fat novel. The reason I read it is because it is thin.

I feel I'm all over my movies. I know my movies are all over me.

I'm certainly hoping that 3D gets to the point where people do not notice it because once they stop noticing it, it just becomes another tool and an aid to help tell a story.

Before statehood was achieved, Syria and Egypt had their tanks and military equipment lined up to invade Tel Aviv and destroy it; but the Israelis scrambled together an air force, some of it from old Second World War Messerschmidts, and the invasion was halted.