When I was doing half-hour shows, I loved it and was preparing myself for the hour shows. Then when I did the hour shows, I was preparing myself for the specials and features.

It was 1978 when Superman came out, and I kept thinking, Why don't they do something about it? They've done all these crappy attempts at comic book film adaptations. What can we do different? Why don't we just re-release this thing?

Soon it's all going to be digital anyway. It's all going to be saved on a little coin somewhere.

It was the beginning of film for television. So we had all of these great opportunities. Northwestern was probably the only major film school of its kind at the time that was graduating anybody important.

People say, You paid your dues, but I never paid any dues. It's always been a great trip.

With The Omen, I really felt I wasn't in control. It was panic.

I was painting sets, working in editorial as an assistant, driving their trucks, lying that I knew how to drive a truck, and doing commercials and documentaries.

It was just the thrill of a lifetime. Brando and Hackman were two of my heroes.

When you make a film, you like to run it with an audience. They tell you you're narrow-minded or subjective, or that seems too long, or that doesn't work.

It's developing a relationship with actors that makes it work.

Some actors just won't bend, and then it's a bitch. You either fight or find ways of putting your words in their mouth and letting them say it back at you.

I was very lucky. I started my own commercial company.

I realized what you could do in motion pictures by surrounding yourself with geniuses.

I was really disappointed that Warner Bros. didn't think highly enough of my film or my filmmaking to ask me to make the new Superman.

When I was doing half-hour shows, I loved it and was preparing myself for the hour shows. Then when I did the hour shows, I was preparing myself for the specials and features.

In motion pictures, the actor rules. The camera served the actor.

I've always wanted to do a Crichton book. I really love his writing.

It's only been a couple of times in my life that I've really locked horns with actors. It did not hurt the films, it just hurt the moment of the filmmaking.

I was tweaked by the idea of Superman immediately.

Working with Christopher, he convinced me he could fly, and he's convinced me he's going to walk again.

That's how you get a performance - they put trust in you.

Superman was never previewed because the producers didn't trust Warners with the film.

If you had the opportunity and some talent, there was no way you couldn't progress, because it was an open market. There was the advertising world, and there was the documentary world.

I'm open to comments. I'm open to objective points of view, because I've been very narrow and very subjective.

How was I going to make a man fly? How was I going to convince the public that an actor could fly?

I was an actor... or, at least, I was trying to be an actor.

When when my first feature opportunity came along, I wasn't prepared, but we did it in about 17 days.

First cuts are a bitch for a director, because it's been so many months and you put your trust in your editor and you're going to see your film assembled for the first time. You look at it and go, This is terrible. I hate it.

I had life threats, because people accused me of approaching Brando as God and his son was Jesus. I literally had people saying my blood would run in the streets for doing that.

I think what some people are doing with effects is starting to get silly. It's overused.

My fans and followers are so amazing.

The school-boy doesn't force himself to learn his vocabularies and rules altogether at night, but knows that be must impress them again in the morning.

As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you and climate change is one of those exceptions.

Woman is the companion of man gifted with equal mental capacity.

The dead govern the living.

I vote for whoever will annoy my dad.

I'm a native of L.A. I've seen the city change and develop over time, and I still believe there's no place like home.

The destructive one-fourth must be eliminated from the social body.

I love to imagine inside the head of a woman.

I am open to love in all forms.

I did very extensive diligence on Al Jazeera English, the network from which Al Jazeera America is going to be derived, and it's really very clear that they have long since established a reputation for excellence and integrity and objectivity.

What we have seen in financial markets should bring home to us all that the central organising principle of this 21st century is interdependence. For the century just past, interdependence may have been one option among many. For the century that is to come, there is no longer an alternative.

Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan

If we don't change the way Washington operates we're going to bankrupt our children and grandchildren.

Thanks cost nothing.

My first job at General Motors was as a quality inspector on the assembly line. I was checking fits between hoods and fenders. I had a little scale and clipboard. At one point, I was probably examining 60 jobs an hour during an eight-hour shift. A job like that teaches you to value all the people who do a job like that.

Every son quotes his father in words and in deeds.

It's not always about gold medals, I think. It has to be about development, and we are missing that in U.K. at the moment.

I've just tried to grow up in the most natural and gradual process that I possibly can and make choices I feel are right for me and my fans.