There are three movies that I am exceptionally proud of in my life, and I rarely commit to a list of films that I like, that I've made... but these are the three films that I was passionately connected to. The first was 'ET,' the second 'Schindler's List,' and third is 'Saving Private Ryan.'

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.

Why pay a dollar for a bookmark? Why not use the dollar for a bookmark?

I don't go through a torturous intellectual process to decide what to direct. I know what I want to direct the second I read something or hear a story. I just know when it grabs me in a certain way I want to direct it. And then I spend the next four to six months trying to talk myself out of it, because directing is really hard! But it's true, I know essentially when and what I want to do next... it's an undeniable feeling I get and it's not the same feeling I get when I wind up producing something.

In '83, not only was there no such thing as performance motion capture technology, there was no such thing as digital animation. This was the analog era.

When I felt like an outsider, movies made me feel inside my own skill set.

The bones of the story of 'War Horse' is a love story. That's what makes it universal.