You can't start a movie by having the attitude that the script is finished, because if you think the script is finished, your movie is finished before the first day of shooting.

People often tell me how much they love the digital skies that we obviously painted for 'War Horse.' Well, there's not a single sky that we put in through special effects. The skies you see in the movie are the skies that we experienced - but it was definitely challenging at times.

Social media has taken over in America to such an extreme that to get my own kids to look back a week in their history is a miracle, let alone 100 years.

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.

In '83, not only was there no such thing as performance motion capture technology, there was no such thing as digital animation. This was the analog era.

My head's not in the clouds, but I think I've gotten too much credit for being an astute businessman.

I don't think that anybody in any war thinks of themselves as a hero. The minute anybody presumes that they are heroes, they get their boots taken away from them and buried in the sand.

Tracking action without cutting is the least jarring method of placing the audience into a real-time experience where they are the ones making the subtle choices of where and when to look.

The most amazing thing for me is that every single person who sees a movie, not necessarily one of my movies, brings a whole set of unique experiences. Now, through careful manipulation and good storytelling, you can get everybody to clap at the same time, to hopefully laugh at the same time, and to be afraid at the same time.

The only movie that I would ever even consider retrofitting is the first 'Jurassic Park,' which I think would look pretty spectacular in 3D. That's the only one of my films that I would consider doing in 3D.

Bloated budgets are ruining Hollywood - these pictures are squeezing all the other types of movies out of Hollywood. It's disastrous.

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

I've always wanted to tell a story about Lincoln. I saw a paternal father figure; I saw someone who was completely, stubbornly committed to his ideals, to his vision.

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

I'm not really interested in making money.

I think that a movie can only be an adjunct or only a supplement to books, to different points of view, to scholars, historians and your own teachers.

Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to and I see another movie I want to make.

In the re-creation of combat situations, and this is coming from a director who's never been in one, being mindful of what these veterans have actually gone through, you find that the biggest concern is that you don't look at war as a geopolitical endeavor.

I am a very impatient director.

I've always been interested in UFOs.

The machinery of the democratic process is really no different today from what it was 150 years ago.

Money to me is not a factor in my life.

I think in terms of chapters. Every time I finish a movie, it's a chapter. When one of my kids graduates from school, that's a chapter.

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

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.

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.

Someone who thinks death is the scariest thing doesn't know a thing about life.

If you need something from somebody always give that person a way to hand it to you.

It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.

Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.

I have noticed that if you look carefully at people's eyes the first five seconds they look at you, the truth of their feelings will shine through for just an instant before it flickers away.

After you get stung, you can't get unstung no matter how much you whine about it.

The world will give you that once in awhile, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.

All my life I've thought I needed someone to complete me, now I know I need to belong to myself.

People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It's that hard.

There is nothing perfect...only life.

We are so limited, you have to use the same word for loving Rosaleen as you do for loving Coke with peanuts. Isn't that a shame we don't have many more ways to say it?

Sunset is the saddest light there is.

And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.

When it's time to die, go ahead and die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid.

You can go other places, all right - you can live on the other side of the world, but you can't ever leave home

There's nothing like a song about lost love to remind you how everything precious can slip from the hinges where you've hung it so careful.

Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.

I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.

You gotta imagine what's never been.

I can't think of anything I'd rather have more than somebody lovin' me.

It's your time to live, don't mess it up.

In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional...What a special case I was.

It shocks me how I wish for...what is lost and cannot come back.

You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind.