I've got a lot of crazy plans.

I've got a lot of crazy plans.

I was getting a lot of hassles from the public. Everybody recognized me.

Even if I had a tuxedo I wouldn't wear it to school.

It's harder to laugh than to cry.

It's really important to go back to where you come from.

I think it's great when girls are artistic.

I can't stay in L.A. too long or it starts to grow on me in a bad way.

I have horses, I drive a truck, and I wear cowboy boots. First I'm a Texan.

If I can generate enough income, I'd like to get a castle, a historic castle that I can restore.

Carloads of tourists would photograph the family mailbox, and there was weird mail, death threats.

I don't know if I was so much of an outsider until after I started doing films. That put me on the outside. I grew up in Texas, and I wasn't the child of industry parents, and I didn't have a lot of friends in the industry or anything like that.

I don't know if there aren't any films like 'E.T.' anymore. I just feel that the industry has changed so much. There are so many outlets now.

I grew up in a rural area, I was from kind of a poor family and my parents weren't showbiz people. But going back was strange, and perhaps stranger for the other students.

I probably complicate things unnecessarily now just to give the illusion of professionalism.

I understood why films were made, and if they made a lot of money, they were successful. All of these things I knew. As a ten-year-old boy, I didn't really think a lot about finances or celebrity. I always viewed films as kind of what I imagined a summer camp to be like.

I would inevitably get the girls who were interested in me because I was the guy from E.T. It was kind of tough. I can't deny ever capitalizing upon it but on the whole in my teens I was pretty virtuous.

It was like that for the first six months after 'E.T.' was in cinemas. I'd go out and get mobbed. I was a shy kid, and being approached by adults all the time just freaked me out.

Many times you walk into a room and people have already made up their minds. But it's always good to have something great associated with you.

Of course there have been times I regretted being the kid in 'E.T.' My world went completely crazy. I was that stupid kind of famous, where you can't go anywhere.

The idea of a film staying in theaters for a year is something of a fantasy today.

The one thing I've always done is to try not to overcomplicate anything.

I didn't want to just be an artist and let someone else have all that control over me. I knew I would have to produce.

If you eat the same cereal every day it's gonna get old. And if I had thought about snowboarding every day, I would have quit a long time ago.

The thing about For Better or Worse is the only thing that made me an okay director for that is that I have a sense of humor, and it was supposed to be funny.

I know what I try to do. I try to be professional, turn up, not make too much fuss, do the job.

The more you do your homework the more youre free to be intuitive. But youve got to put the work in.

You cannot live a normal existence if you haven't taken care of a problem that affects your life and affects the lives of others, values that you hold which in fact define your very existence.

My father left me with his love of Jewish studies and cultural life. To this very day, along with several physicians and scientist colleagues, I take regular periodical lessons taught by a Rabbinical scholar on how the Jewish law views moral and ethical problems related to modern medicine and science.

Comfort rarely produces great art.

We understand God by everything in ourselves that is fragmentary, incomplete, and inopportune.

There are a lot of forms of exercise where you have to leave yourself out of the room while you force yourself to do this thing. With Pilates, I get to bring my true self. I cry, I laugh. I get to go, 'Where is my body today? What do I need today? How can I take care of myself and push myself past my comfort zone?'

The way I found time to write 'The Imperfectionists' was that I took work as a copy editor at the 'International Herald Tribune' in Paris, working full-time for approximately six months, then taking my savings from that and writing full-time, then returning after six months, and so on, until the book was done!

I can't just turn over and sing disco or rock.

My father taught me you have to believe in yourself and run on your own track.

I feel like going to class every morning is so humbling. You're always working to improve, and you're always being critiqued on your next performance. It's not about what you've done. There's always room to grow.

What are the secret of success ? -one word answer: “rational”.

I couldn't really experience being an author when I was still working in publishing - I was trying to negotiate being both. Sometimes the knowledge doesn't translate between the two roles.

I've stopped watching TV news. They couldn't pay me enough money.

The longest sentence you can form with two words is: I do.

I'm not naturally manipulative.

I enjoy a good cliffhanger. As a reader, I relish that nervous feeling you get when you're engrossed in a story, but in the back of your mind you're aware that there aren't that many pages left. How will it end? Everything can't be wrapped up! This can't end! Then it does, and your heart seems to stop.

I've really gone into business since I got the 6 string, which was like starting all over.

People will visit Mars, they will settle mars, and we should because it's cool.

My attitude when I'm in Mexico is I wake up in the morning with nothing to do and I go to bed half done. I don't wear a watch. When I live down there, I do nothing according to time. I eat when I'm hungry and go to sleep when I'm tired.

I couldn't do country, with all due respect to all country music artists. My parents dressed me up with a cowboy hat and we'd go to the rodeo when I was younger and it traumatized me for life.