We agreed that we cannot let personal political attacks get in the way of doing the very best we can for California's children.

I know how sobering and exhausting parenthood is. But the reality is that our children's future depends on us as parents. Because we know that the first years truly last forever.

It's a very slow process - two steps forward, one step back - but I'm inching in the right direction.

Something is wrong here, and it's more than easy access to guns or violence on TV. It's about lack of love and attachment to loving people early in life.

Everybody talks about wanting to change things and help and fix, but ultimately all you can do is fix yourself. And that's a lot. Because if you can fix yourself, it has a ripple effect.

Every single person in jail for a violent crime had a nightmare childhood.

I like writing because you can make things happen and turn out the way they never do in real life.

I think Jews are the smartest people in the world.

We agreed that we cannot let personal political attacks get in the way of doing the very best we can for California's children.

People can be ignorant and still have loving, human qualities.

As far as getting my start, it was really Norman Lear, even aside from being on 'All in the Family.' He helped me get my start as a director. He was the one who said, 'Let him do 'Spinal Tap.' Let him give it a try,' because I had been trying for years to get that thing off the ground.

I act once in awhile if something comes up that seems fun. I like to do it - it's a lot of fun because there's no responsibility. You let other people have the headaches. The director has all of the headaches.

I acted when I was young, but at 19, I had my own theater company where I acted but also directed. I also did some theater in Los Angeles. So I was always wanting to direct, even before I became an established actor.

I don't think anybody's all good or all bad.

I don't think you should necessarily listen to a celebrity just because he is one. But if you can marshal your celebrity and really steep yourself in whatever issue you're trying to promote, it can actually move the ball forward, and we've done that.

I love it when people come up to me and they say a line. Like, you know, 'My name is Indigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.'

I love the idea of making movies that kids and adults can go to together and both get something out of it, and not just, 'Oh, I've got to take my kid to the movie because they want to see the next, you know, 'Hannah Montana' movie or whatever.'

I'd never ask an actor to do something I couldn't do - not that I'm the best actor in the world - but if I can do it, then I know that anyone I hire can do these things.

I've made movies that nobody saw initially, and then, all the sudden, people over the years pick up on it. Like 'Spinal Tap' and 'Princess Bride.'

Martin Scorsese is one of the great filmmakers of all time.

The marketing costs are insane now. So even if you've got a picture like 'Flipped' which cost under $14 million, or $13.5 million, you're still going to spend on an national basis, if you release with a good national release, you're still going to spend, you know, $30-$40 million.

The most important thing is that you be a good person and you live by the golden rule of do unto others. If you live by that, that's all I care about.

The reason they don't make movies for adults and for people which are the largest bulge of the population is because they are not usually going to the movie the first weekend. They take a while to learn about it, probably word of mouth. It takes a lot of money to release a picture.

There's not one film that I've ever made that could get made today by a studio, not one - even 'A Few Good Men' because it's an adult courtroom drama, and studios do not make them any more. And so every movie that I make, have made and will make is always going be independently financed.

We made the joke when we screened 'Bucket List' that there was 100% desire to see amongst our demographic with a 40% ability to get them to see it.

When I read 'Stand By Me,' it was like, 'This is a look back at the same time period when I was growing up, and it was about kids, but it really felt like what it was like to have those powerful feelings of friendship at age 12.' That's what got to me.

When I show up to act in a movie for somebody else, I just want to be nice and helpful and do what they want because I know how difficult it is to make a movie. I don't want to cause any problems. So you show up and do your job, and I think if a director understands that, you don't make a lot of demands.

Corporate partners help UNICEF fund our programmes for children, advocate with us on their behalf, or facilitate our work through logistical, technical, research or supply support.

Bambi has a profound effect on children because it's about losing your mother.

I love children and I love men, but I can't commit to either for the rest of my life.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

I'm not up on today's television for children, because it's mostly cartoons that don't seem to interest me.

When I see children, I see the face of God. That's why I love them so much. That's what I see.

We have three cats. It's like having children, but there is no tuition involved.

Instead of needing lots of children, we need high-quality children.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

Fiction came quite a while later. I began with short stories and fiction for children.

A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

I believe very firmly that gay people of every stripe and age should be role models for all children, and that means interacting with them.

In fact I have nightmares about having children. I want to carry a baby and feel the life within me and in my dream, I do. But every time after it's born, there's this incredible fear, this pounding pulse of fear. It's a real bad nightmare.

When you are getting ready to become a mom, being in love with someone just isn't enough. You need to think about whether he would be a good parent and raise your children with similar beliefs.

The real question isn't whether you love your kids or not, but how well you are able to demonstrate your love and caring so that your children really feel loved.

I am glad that I do not have any children.

I just did a picture book called The Wildest Brother on Earth, and you will find both of my children in there.

You want to spend time with your children even though you are tired so you do all those things.

Once, the parental bed collapsed because all the children sat on it at once.