As a director, you have to understand what is happening - if I don't understand it, you can't make changes.

Life is too short to be lived badly.

The real war is not between the West and the East. The real war is between intelligent and stupid people.

All big changes of the world come from words.

Drawing is the first language of the human being before writing. It's a transcription of how the human being sees reality, not reality itself.

When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression.

Culture and education are the lethal weapons against all kinds of fundamentalism.

My mother always told me I had to do 100 times better than a man. I had to work hard at maths, and learn four languages.

The world is not about Batman and Robin fighting the Joker; things are more complicated than that. And nothing is scarier than the people who try to find easy answers to complicated questions.

The best thing I ever did in my life was to ask, 'Do I like everybody?' And the answer was, 'No.' So why should everybody like me? If people are against me, so what? I'm against them too.

Nothing's worse than saying goodbye. It's a little like dying.

Those in true spiritual authority have neither the desire nor the need to control anyone, either directly or subversively.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

Death is not the end it is but one more step in a great forward march made possible by the redemption wrought by the Savior. This is the spirit of true science - constant and eternal seeking.

Going to a party, for me, is as much a learning experience as, you know, sitting in a lecture.

A lot of movies treat kids like idiots.

Fear is ugly because it makes you irrational. Fear makes you jump to conclusions. Fear makes you reactionary.

If you're not engaged in the writing and it doesn't grab you then you just don't want to do it.

Rome is a place almost worn out by being looked at, a city collapsing under the weight of reference.

What I have proposed would cut regulations and streamline them for small businesses.

Do goofy stories make people nice? What if, in their goofiness, these stories somehow inspire that in the right way. Is that a social good?