After a scary movie about the world almost ending, we can walk into the sunlight and say, "Wow, everything's still here. I'm OK!" We like to tease ourselves. Human beings have a need to get close to the edge, and when filmmakers or writers can take them to the edge, it feels like a dream where you're falling, but you wake up just before you hit the ground.

Television has a different biorhythm than movies. I love the biorhythm of TV.

I don't think any movie or any book or any work of art can solve the stalemate in the Middle East today. But it's certainly worth a try.

I think in terms of chapters. Every time I finish a movie, it's a chapter. When one of my kids graduates from school, that's a chapter.

I think that a movie can only be an adjunct or only a supplement to books, to different points of view, to scholars, historians and your own teachers.

I've always been interested in how we survive and how resourceful we are as Americans.

Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about.