When you break into song, it's not about dialogue, it's not about how you would speak in a naturalistic sense-it's about expressing your inner torment or your inner joy.

One of the reasons I love to jump back and forth between mediums is that film does allow me to be more literal. I can go to the real place. I can go to the Coliseum, and I don't have to fake it.

When I was thinking about The Lion King, I said, we have to do what theater does best. What theater does best is to be abstract and not to do literal reality.

I think we all see the world from our own little unique bubble.

I really do believe that if you don't challenge yourself and risk failing, that it's not interesting.

There is incredible power in the arts to inspire and influence.

Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry.

What I don't have in theater is editing.

An artist is an entertainer, number one - a storyteller who takes people someplace, who gives them what they didn't know they wanted.

Limitations force you to find the essence of what you want to say, which is one of the most important things to know for an artist.

I want to experience a performance on all levels - I want goose bumps and I want to leave the movie or play arguing about something that's unresolved.

He who has no light in his heart, what will he gain from the festival of lamps.

You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.

The thing that was important to me about Hemingway at the time was that Hemingway taught me that you could be a writer and get away with it.

I was 17, and all I wanted to do was to get away from England and the awful, boring boarding schools I'd been going to there. The last one was taught by monks, and I couldn't wait to get out.

I find that we are all such sinners that it is better to leave the judging to God.

The unique nature about the influenza virus is its great potential for changes, for mutation.

I had this idea that the coolest thing that could happen to you was talking with God.

I knew I could control one thing, and that is my time and my hours and my effort and my efficiency.

For me, it's good fortune to be between two cultures. Growing up in Germany taught me a lot. I am a world citizen. Today I can adapt well no matter where I am. Even when it's not always easy.

Culture defines who we are and how we see ourselves. A new attitude toward nature provides space for a new attitude toward culture and the role it plays in sustainable development