'E.T.' began with me trying to write a story about my parents' divorce.

I always think if it's a good story, the audience can't wait to run out of the theater and go tweet somebody with the gist of a story, in a nutshell, almost, because it was that interesting.

I've learned there are a lot of people that don't want to believe the Holocaust ever happened because it doesn't fit their other beliefs and so they deny it and it makes them sleep better at night to do so. But it makes the Holocaust survivors sleep better at night to know that we've given them a voice.

I dream for a living. Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to, and I see another movie I want to make.

From the day I started to think politically and to develop my own moral values, from my earliest youth, I have been an ardent defender of Israel.

I am a very impatient director.

All of us every single year, we're a different person. I don't think we're the same person all our lives.