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

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

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.

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.

I don't drink coffee. I've never had a cup of coffee in my entire life. That's something you probably don't know about me. I've hated the taste since I was a kid.

Whether in success or in failure, I'm proud of every single movie I've ever directed.

I get that same queasy, nervous, thrilling feeling every time I go to work. That's never worn off since I was 12 years-old with my dad's 8-millimeter movie camera.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jihadism have nothing to do with each other.

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.

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.

It all starts with the script: it's not worth taking myself away from my family if I don't have something I'm really passionate about.

I think documentaries are the greatest way to educate an entire generation that doesn't often look back to learn anything about the history that provided a safe haven for so many of us today.

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

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

Well, luckily with animation, fantasy is your friend.

There's nothing self-serving about what motivated me to bring 'Schindler's List' to the screen.

When I was very young, I remember my mother telling me about a friend of hers in Germany, a pianist who played a symphony that wasn't permitted, and the Germans came up on stage and broke every finger on her hands. I grew up with stories of Nazis breaking the fingers of Jews.

When I felt like an outsider, movies made me feel inside my own skill set.

I missed my dad a lot growing up, even though we were together as a family. My dad was really a workaholic. And he was always working.

I think Lincoln had a unique parenting style. He let his kids run free and wild.

My father had many, many veterans over to the house, and the older I got the more I appreciated their sacrifice.

One of the gratuities about being a director is that you can volunteer yourself out of difficult details.

The baby boomers owe a big debt of gratitude to the parents and grandparents - who we haven't given enough credit to anyway - for giving us another generation.

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

My dad's been responsible for a lot of my issues.

The only time I have a good hunch the audience is going to be there is when I make the sequel to 'Jurassic Park' or I make another Indiana Jones movie. I know I've got a good shot at getting an audience on opening night. Everything else that is striking out into new territory is a crap shoot.

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.

I don't make unconventional stories; I don't make non-linear stories. I like linear storytelling a lot.

If the world ran the way a crew runs a set, we'd have a better, more progressive world.

I have a choice - I can either watch all the dailies, or I can follow the social media. I can't do both.

I didn't read reviews earlier in my career, but I read them now as I'm older. I read them all.

I made 'Saving Private Ryan' for my father. He's the one who filled my head with war stories when I was growing up.

This whole thing about reality television to me is really indicative of America saying we're not satisfied just watching television, we want to star in our own TV shows. We want you to discover us and put us in your own TV show, and we want television to be about us, finally.

You can't intellectually purge yourself of who you are. Whatever that is, it's going to come out in the wash, the film wash. What you are is going to be relevant, if not to yourself, to the movies you make.

I thought film was more important than life itself for many years. But I was naive to the world until my first child was born in 1985.

I turned down 'Harry Potter' and 'Spider-Man,' two movies that I knew would be phenomenally successful, because I had already made movies like that before and they offered no challenge to me. I don't need my ego to be reminded.

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.

My problem is that my imagination won't turn off. I wake up so excited I can't eat breakfast. I've never run out of energy. It's not like OPEC oil; I don't worry about a premium going on my energy. It's just always been there. I got it from my mom.

'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.

My early exposure to all the leviathans of the Saturday matinee creature features inspired me, when I grew up, to make 'Jurassic Park.'

Making a movie and not directing the little moments is like drinking a soda and leaving the little slurp puddle for someone else.

I just had a crazy, wild imagination all my life, and science fiction is the greatest outlet for me.

I love history, so I do a lot of movies about history.

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.

I love to go to a regular movie theater, especially when the movie is a big crowd-pleaser. It's much better watching a movie with 500 people making noise than with just a dozen.

The Japanese had a very strong belief in Bushido, death before dishonour. They were fighting for their country; they were the aggressors in World War II.

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

I once said that CGI makes you less inventive. At the time I was bemoaning the loss of the practical stunt. If a stunt can be done practically and safely, I'd rather do it old-style.

There are so many rumours about so many of us in the public eye. Sometimes it's too hard to deny what is not true.

I believe in 3D for certain kinds of films. I certainly believe in using 3D for all things in animation because animation has such clarity and so much depth of focus. It worked great with 'Avatar' because 70 percent of that film is animated.