Be kind. It's worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them.

My goal is just to make movies, whether they're big or small, that I'd like to see 10 years from now.

I don't think special attention should be given to an actor or a singer or a baseball player or a soccer player more than anyone else, but they do have an opinion like anyone else.

There might be people out there who wouldn't hire me because they thought I should keep my mouth shut, but I'm not aware of that. Even if I saw evidence of that, it wouldn't really concern me.

To be an artist, you don't have to compose music or paint or be in the movies or write books. It's just a way of living. It has to do with paying attention, remembering, filtering what you see and answering back, participating in life.

In December of 2002, the late Richard Corliss, a respected movie critic with a long and illustrious career, wrote an embarrassing letter of support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan in the guise of a Time magazine review of Peter Jackson's The Two Towers.

As a kid I read Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and a few others. As an adult have admired Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and notebooks.