For someone like Daniel Radcliffe, it’s really fun to go against your image. He’s such a goody-two-shoes in Harry Potter. I just wanted him to throw off the gloves and be weird and quirky.

I was never crying and shaking like the Beliebers do, but I understand the idolizing of a hero.

A director is what a director wants to be. If you want to force something, you can fight to the death and maybe get fired, but it's your job to help push things along.

I just feel so lucky to tell stories and make up stories and share them with people.

Each dancer has a different dialect that they speak.

I loved 'The Social Network.' I think it's one of those movies that will stand the test of time.

I don't understand why we're all connected wirelessly via a little machine that goes in our pocket, to everybody in the world, and you have to have reels for a movie.

You're never going to satisfy everybody.

Once you see dance as a weapon - and everyone has a different weapon - it makes dance really interesting.

I love 3-D, and for certain movies it can be really great, and for certain movies it can be poison.

I love 'Dr Strangelove.

In Desert Storm, we had too many troops; in Afghanistan probably not enough for the major commitment we have made.

Great oaks grow from little acorns. He has a green thumb. He has green fingers. He's sowing his wild oats. Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand.

When Michelle and I decided that I would run for President, it was because of a shared belief in the power of community and connection, a commitment to the idea that we are our brothers' keepers.

Le silence est la plus grande perse cution: jamais les saints ne se sont tus. Silence is the greatest of all persecutions: no saint was ever silent.

A meeting moves at the speed of the slowest mind in the room. (In other words, all but one participant will be bored, all but one mind underused.)

It is said that gifts persuade even the gods.

Elegant persuasion is when the other person thought it was their idea.

I do a great deal of research, especially in the apartments of tall blondes.

Again, it occurred to me how weird it was to be permanent in a place that to everyone else was only temporary. Like I could never be sure if they were the ones who weren't real, or if I was.

I think we seek out people who we hope will fix what our childhood broke.