I believe we need heroes...we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.

I think it is obscene that we should believe that we are entitled to end somebody's life, no matter what that person has supposedly done or not done.

I passionately believe in heroes, but I think the world has changed its criteria in determining who it describes as a hero.

There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.

I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do ask that they pay for them.

I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.

I just love biography, and I'm fascinated by people who have shifted our destinies or our points of view.

I want to be remembered as a storyteller.

Art is not an elitist gift for a few select people. Art is for everyone.

What I am sad about is that there is now, in America, no equivalent to the art circuit.

I think Tom Paine is one of the greatest men that's ever lived.

Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.

The presidency does not yield to definition. Like the glory of a morning sunrise, it can be experienced.

I am Zarathustra the Godless: where shall I find my equal? All those who give themselves their own will and renounce all submission, they are my equals.

You see a kid making a film on a cell phone. He doesn't know what he's doing either. But it comes out kind of good.

I do not know what we should do without the pulpit. We could better spare the sun-the moon, anyway.

I think there is a tendency for people to get rigid and caught up in their beliefs of what is right and wrong, and they lose sight of humanity. Being human has to come first before right or wrong.

All future wars, all future accidents will be live wars and live accidents.

If it be true, as I believe it is, that morality is dependent upon religion, then religion is not only the most practical thing in the world, but the first essential.

The greatest saint in the world is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice. It is he who is most thankful to God.

Father said conflict develops the character