The greatest directors are the greatest users. They use people's talents to tell the story that they want to tell.

It's great to be recognized for work, and the work is great, but once you have the awards, it becomes less important. It just gives you the ability to do better work, in my opinion.

Very few people make exterior movies anymore. It's always action films driven by action and quick editing.

There are films that are difficult. There are films that would actually affect your personal life because of the length of the production, how long [you're away] from the family.

If you take away 'Schindler's List' and 'Saving Private Ryan', I like 'Minority Report' a lot.

I had very little involvement with 'TinTin'. Very little involvement. So I can't really elaborate on that either.

["War Horse"] does have action as well, but we allow the audience to appreciate the environment where these characters are from because the lens shapes the people, as we know.

It would be horrible to be micro-managed! I don't think directors can really micro-manage people. It's just impossible.

[I] love 'Munich', man. That's a very underappreciated film.

Really fantastic film, 'Munich'. So yeah, if I would say, what's the most underappreciated film, I think 'Munich' would be the one.

I just directed another picture called 'American Dream' with Nick Stahl. Just finished shooting principal photography right before I started ['Lincoln'].

Reading is a pleasurable paradise.

In many cases, it was the woman’s stomach—not her heart—that fell for her man.

Isn’t the media supposed to keep government responsible?

The cool thing about my show and me is that I'm a writer, and I'm a writer first if I don't have music.

You don't fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity.

Self-will in the man who does not reckon wisely is by itself the weakest of all things.

I have a background in theater, so I have experience with actors. I like actors - I used to be one.

My best year I made $25,000. Of course, that was back in the '70s.

We are sick of war, we don't want to fight, And yet we gorge ourselves upon the dead.

Even when there are banalities, they're usually kind of benign banalities.