Even if I'd had a really happy relationship with my father and there was no emotional hiatus for a decade and a half, I probably would still have made some of the same choices for movies that I've made.

I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven't ever directed a film where I haven't made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time.

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.

Before I go off and direct a movie, I always look at four films. They tend to be The Seven Samurai, Lawrence Of Arabia, It's A Wonderful Life and The Searchers.

When I don't have a movie, I don't take a job just for the sake of working. I just sit it out until I find something I'm passionate about.

I've always been very hopeful which I guess isn't strange coming from me. I don't want to call myself an optimist. I want to say that I've always been full of hope. I've never lost that. I have a lot of hope for this country and for the entire world. . .

Everybody who works for Amblin Television has to do five jobs.