I wanted to do another movie that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world. I wanted to do something else that could make us smile. This is a time when we need to smile more and Hollywood movies are supposed to do that for people in difficult times.

I'd rather direct than produce. Any day. And twice on Sunday.

There is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility.

I interviewed survivors, I went to Poland, saw the cities and spent time with the people and spoke to the Jews who had come back to Poland after the war and talked about why they had come back.

I am an American Jew and aware of the sensitivities involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I like the smell of film. I just like knowing there's film going through the camera.

Why pay a dollar for a bookmark? Why not use the dollar for a bookmark?

When I grow up, I still want to be a director.

A lot of the films I've made probably could have worked just as well 50 years ago, and that's just because I have a lot of old-fashion values.

I'm not really interested in making money.

I dream for a living.

I've discovered I've got this preoccupation with ordinary people pursued by large forces.

I wanted to do another movie that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world. I wanted to do something else that could make us smile. This is a time when we need to smile more and Hollywood movies are supposed to do that for people in difficult times.

All of us every single year, we're a different person. I don't think we're the same person all our lives.

You have many years ahead of you to create the dreams that we can't even imagine dreaming. You have done more for the collective unconscious of this planet than you will ever know.

You know, I don't really do that much looking inside me when I'm working on a project. Whatever I am becomes what that film is. But I change; you change.

I don't think any movie or any book or any work of art can solve the stalemate in the Middle East today. But it's certainly worth a try.

There is something about killing people at close range that is excruciating. It's bound to try a man's soul.

I want to be the Cecil B. DeMille of science fiction.

People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don't have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.

I never felt comfortable with myself, because I was never part of the majority. I always felt awkward and shy and on the outside of the momentum of my friends' lives.

The public has an appetite for anything about imagination - anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible.

Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about.

I'm always in favor of Israel responding strongly when it's threatened. At the same time, a response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine.

If Bush, as I believe, has reliable information on the fact that Saddam Hussein is making weapons of mass destruction, I cannot not support the policies of his government.

Naturally, it is a terrible, despicable crime when, as in Munich, people are taken hostage, people are killed. But probing the motives of those responsible and showing that they are also individuals with families and have their own story does not excuse what they did.

When war comes, two things happen - profits go way, way up and all perishables go way, way down. There becomes a market for them.

'E.T.' began with me trying to write a story about my parents' divorce.

'The Color Purple' is the kind of character piece that a director like Sidney Lumet could do brilliantly with one hand tied behind his back.

A lot of kids only know 'E.T.' from the digitally-enhanced version.

All presidents swear an oath to the Constitution to keep this country united, and when the country fell apart, Lincoln had to put it back together again, with a lot of help. But he bore total responsibility.

And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I've never questioned the choices I make as a director.

As a Jew I am aware of how important the existence of Israel is for the survival of us all. And because I am proud of being Jewish, I am worried by the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the world.

Audience members are only concerned about the story, the concept, the bells and whistles and the noise that a popular film starts to make even before it's popular. So audiences will not be drawn to the technology; they'll be drawn to the story. And I hope it always remains that way.

Because of how much movies cost, it's dangerous to be experimental on one film after the other. But we can experiment with television. We can do things that are fringe and bring ideas to the table that are offbeat and original.

Because television doesn't offer the kind of budget that a movie offers, you've got to be a little more careful where you spend the money to put the fiction in science.

Before statehood was achieved, Syria and Egypt had their tanks and military equipment lined up to invade Tel Aviv and destroy it; but the Israelis scrambled together an air force, some of it from old Second World War Messerschmidts, and the invasion was halted.

Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director's point of view.

Cell phones tend to bring us more inside of our lives whereas movies offer a chance to escape, so there are two competing forces.

Documentaries are the first line of education, and the second line of education is dramatization, such as 'The Pacific'.

Even if I'd had a really happy relationship with my father and there was no emotional hiatus for a decade and a half, I probably would still have made some of the same choices for movies that I've made.

Even though I get older, what I do never gets old, and that's what I think keeps me hungry.

Everybody who works for Amblin Television has to do five jobs.

Fathering is a major job, but I need both things in my life: my job to be a director, and my kids to direct me.

For one thing, I don't think that anybody in any war thinks of themselves as a hero.

For the most part, everybody who fights in war fights to survive.

From the day I started to think politically and to develop my own moral values, from my earliest youth, I have been an ardent defender of Israel.

History opens up new worlds to film-makers all the time.

I always think if it's a good story, the audience can't wait to run out of the theater and go tweet somebody with the gist of a story, in a nutshell, almost, because it was that interesting.