I am an American Jew and aware of the sensitivities involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I turned down 'Harry Potter' and 'Spider-Man,' two movies that I knew would be phenomenally successful, because I had already made movies like that before and they offered no challenge to me. I don't need my ego to be reminded.

Steve Jobs was the greatest inventor since Thomas Edison. He put the world at our fingertips.

Audience members are only concerned about the story, the concept, the bells and whistles and the noise that a popular film starts to make even before it's popular. So audiences will not be drawn to the technology; they'll be drawn to the story. And I hope it always remains that way.

Audrey gave more than she ever got. The whole world is going to miss her.

I just think that the qualities of leadership are unknown even to the leader until he's tested and given a challenge.

I've just always had a personal fascination with the myth of Abraham Lincoln. And once you start to read about him and the Civil War and everything leading up to the Civil War, you start to understand that the myth is created when we think we understand a character and we reduce him to a kind of cultural national stereotype.