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 did 50 takes on Robert Shaw assembling the Greener Gun on 'Jaws.' The shark wasn't working, so I just kept shooting to make the production report look like we were accomplishing something and to keep cast and crew from going crazy from boredom. It was a strategic indulgence.

I just had a crazy, wild imagination all my life, and science fiction is the greatest outlet for me.

Like, I took no poetic license with 'Schindler's List' because that was historical, factual documents.

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

Audiences are harder to please if you're just giving them effects, but they're easy to please if it's a good story.

People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don't have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.