Frank Capra was a prop man, I think. John Ford was a prop man. It was a little bit of a father and son thing, and you kind of worked your way up.

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

When I was about 9, I had polio, and people were very frightened for their children, so you tended to be isolated. I was paralyzed for a while, so I watched television.

An essential element of any art is risk. If you don't take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn't been seen before?

I used to love going into local hardware stores, to look at little things they made locally. Nowadays it's harder, though you can still do it in Vietnam.

I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.

There's nothing creative about living within your means.

Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.

You don't have to specialize - do everything that you love and then, at some time, the future will come together for you in some form.

If the movie works, nobody notices the mistakes... If the movie doesn't work, the only thing people notice are mistakes.

Be gentle, confident and action-oriented. Remember, your actions will make a difference.

[T]he greater the sense of awe with which a text was regarded, the more complete might be the amnesia as to the original circumstances of its composition.

Maybe when we face a tragedy, someone, somewhere is preventing a bigger tragedy from happening.

My practical approach based on experience is to create a website for real Internet users, not for search engine spiders.

Regis Philbin is very successful in his own right. We have a new thing where he have chairs and we sit and talk to each other about my career and his career. It works pretty well if I do say so.

Long slow distance makes long slow runners.

When we follow our bliss, we are met by a thousand unseen helping hands.

I consider everything I compose a gift.

Truthfulness under oath is, by now, a matter of our civic religion, our relation to our fellow citizens rather than our relation to a nonhuman power.

The wise man thinks once before he speaks twice.