India is a place where one of the great pleasures for a foreigner is that you're constantly surprised. Everywhere you look is something that is either funny, or very moving, but there is always so much that is so unexpected.

I just now put [Robert Altman] down feeling heartbroken but happily and deeply inspired. . . . Wonderful.

Paris is a place where, for me, just walking down a street that I've never been down before is like going to a movie.

Some of the ideas are kind of inspired by the songs, and I always want to use music to tell the story and give the movie a certain kind of mood. That's always essential to me.

I don't know what is in store for the movie business any better than anybody else does, but it does seem like my kind of movies are a little trickier than it used to be - or maybe a lot trickier.

the one thing I've observed over the years is the best way to get an actor to not want to play a certain role is to offer it to them. That makes them say, "Well, maybe it's not that good. These guys don't want me to do this..."

I will say that Edward Norton, who plays the scout master, would be a first-rate Eagle Scout. He's got all those techniques. If your plane crashes into the jungle somewhere, he would be the guy you would want to have with you.