Our problem is civil obedience

You will never solve poverty without solving water and sanitation.

Now I feel I have an unspoken deal with the paparazzi: 'I won't do anything publicly interesting if you agree not to follow me.'

I think what's important for kids to know is that your decisions here on earth matter, your behavior matters and how you treat other people matters.

If anybody wanted to photograph my life, they'd get bored in a day.

My wife is my soul mate. I can't imagine being without her.

I'm always cautious about overstepping any boundaries. At the end of the day, it's a director's medium, and if they don't want to hear from me I just step back.

Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage

If you can't help people, then what is the point of being successful?

It's just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants.

Please find out what you can do to make a difference. Take five minutes to educate yourself on an issue you didn't know about before. Then tell somebody else.

Always be reading something, he said. Even when we're not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.

I can't imagine dating a boy, meeting him only outside the home. What's a home and family for if it's not the center of one's life?

In complete darkness, it is only knowledge and wisdom that separates us.

Its about letting go so you can get what what you want.

It has actually become very necessary in our time to rebut the theory that every firm and serious friendship is really homosexual.

Success is an act of exploration. That means the first thing you have to find is the unknown. Learning is searching; anything else is just waiting.

Great trees are good for nothing but shade.

I don't think I can ever escape from music.

How many chances to you get to make a musical about a serial killer? The minute Tim Burton approached me, I was in.

I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.