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.

I go out and look for a good story to tell and if I like it enough and I decide to direct it, I become dangerously involved in becoming a part of that story.

I always like to play with my kids. I always have the time to do that. That's my priority, always has been, so just interacting with my kids, and being with them is great.

Our one goal is to give the world a taste of peace, friendship and understanding. Through the visual arts, the art of celebration of life.

I made 'Saving Private Ryan' for my father. He's the one who filled my head with war stories when I was growing up.

I never felt comfortable with myself, because I was never part of the majority. I always felt awkward and shy and on the outside of the momentum of my friends' lives.

From a very young age, my parents taught me the most important lesson of my whole life: They taught me how to listen. They taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge - and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.