I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it's getting.

I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.

First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.

There's no downside to having too much experience.

You don't always have to have the ending, but you want to have a satisfactory conclusion.

A lot of time mistakes are very interesting - you look for the behaviour that's not the one you expect.

I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can't truly define why something succeeds.

I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.

When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.

Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.

Some actors are supposed to be very difficult, but I've not found that to be the situation.

Rename your “To-Do” list to your “Opportunities” list. Each day is a treasure chest filled with limitless opportunities

You'd think getting chopped into a million pieces and cast into the darkest part of the Underworld would give him a subtle clue that nobody wanted him around.

The only way to handle big business is to delegate, delegate, delegate.

Mankind might be divided between multitude who hate to be kept waiting because they get bored and the happy few who rather like it because it gives them time for thought.

Nevertheless, this one fact should be apparent: turning the other cheek is a bribe. It is a valid form of action for only so long as the Christian is impotent politically or militarily.

I did not write it (Uncle Tom's Cabin). God wrote it. I merely did his dictation.

Singing has nothing to do with the affairs of this world: it is not for the law. Singers are merry, and free from sorrows and cares.

Because of empathy, stories of the suffering of one person could lead us into a war that could kill millions of people.

No boy is worth crying over, and the one who is won't make you cry.

I believe the world is as we choose to view it. Simple as that. Our happiness is, in the end, up to us, and to no one else.