All those horrible, traumatic years I spent as a kid became what I draw from creatively today.

The only thing that gets me back to directing is good scripts.

All of my movies are about how I wish the world would work. I've made very few movies about how the world worked. I could name them on one and a half hands, about how my movies have been very reflective of how the world was exactly. A lot of my movies are really about the way I wish the world was, and that's what this whole art form is all about. It's an interpretive art form.

There is something that you have that no one else ever had ... When you watch Kirk's [Douglas] performance in anything, in anything he's ever done, you cannot take your eyes off of him. It's not possible to look away from him.

I'll probably never win an Oscar, but I'll sure have a lot of fun! I really believe that movies are the great escape.

I love creating partnerships; I love not having to bear the entire burden of the creative storytelling, and when I have unions like with George Lucas and Peter Jackson, it's really great; not only do I benefit, but the project is better for it.

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.