Oprah Winfrey's global influence is unparalleled. Not only has her generosity and firm belief that education is the key to a better life benefited countless women and children around the world, but her example has also inspired millions of people to give back in ways big and small.

I think over any period of time, especially if you don't use leverage, it is difficult to continually beat the S&P 500.

I don't think it makes any sense for an individual to invest in common stocks unless they know the company, work at the company, and so on.

There were periods when the art market got overheated, but there is no reason it should appreciate dramatically.

I am old enough to remember when America's K-12 public schools were the best in the world. I am a proud graduate of them, and I credit much of my success to what I learned in Detroit Public Schools and at Michigan State University.

You always learn lessons in business.

The happiest people I've found are in science. These people have three times the IQ - maybe I'm exaggerating. They have a higher IQ than I do. They love what they're doing, they have a good family life, they're satisfied.

Being a Midwesterner, I know that many of the middle-class manufacturing jobs that had been at the heart of our economy are either gone or going, and they're not coming back.

To me, unconventional thinking is approaching a problem and asking, 'Why not? Why can't something be done?' If someone can't give me a good reason why you can't do something, I find a way to do it.

I'm naturally curious, and I read four newspapers a day.

For businesses to be successful, they need to constantly ask the question: 'How can we provide value to our customers?' At the end of the day, that is what matters.

Managers are responsible for setting workplace policies under which teachers can succeed. Managers are responsible for negotiating contracts that create the conditions under which teachers can succeed.

I think the opera is one of the great cultural jewels of Los Angeles.

Teach For America provides one of the most critical pipelines for bringing new talent into public education.

Unfortunately, the boards of art institutions tend to be populated with well-meaning supporters of the arts who often lack any business background or appetite for imposing appropriate discipline.

A lot of executives act like their time is worth more than anyone else's. But I always respect an employee who guards his or her time, even from me.

I don't see myself as a great discoverer of artists, like Charles Saatchi.

As a kid, my idols were Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, and I get into crazy races with myself. Raimi was 21 when he made movies, and when I didn't get 'Cabin Fever' made that fast I thought I'd failed.

'Cabin Fever' was very much inspired by 'The Thing.' It's really a perfect guy's horror movie: There's no love story, it's just straight-up horror. And it's so well-done. It moves at a slow pace, but it's really terrific.

I love historical movies. I want to make a violent medieval epic.

When I was 22, I had this horrible psoriasis outbreak. It was all over my legs, I couldn't walk because my legs were cracked and bleeding. Weird things like that can happen to your body.

Some disaster movies look like you're watching someone else play video games. They're fun but it's not real.

It's just assumed that a horror sequel is going to be bad. It's never going to be as good as the first one.

I love movies that are just straight-up exploitation, but the ones that endure and the ones that last are the ones where the filmmakers put in that extra level of thought; after 25 years you put them on in front of an audience, and they'll respond to it and enjoy it.

I think that many people are ashamed when they feel afraid. There's this thing in our society that you're not allowed to feel scared. You have to be a man and put on a brave face, but we all have fears.

I've always been fascinated by the idea that there's no such thing as evil; it's all in your point of view. To one group a suicide bomber is the antichrist and to one he's a hero.

When you make a film for a million and a half dollars and it opens at 20 million, the next question out of everyone's mouth is, 'When's the next one, when's the next one, when's the next one?'

I need to eliminate 'like' from my vocabulary. I begin sentences with, 'That's seriously like... ' I hear myself talking in this Los Angeles high-school student kind of way, and I hate it.

I like to take risks and do weird things and stuff that's not normal compared to other Hollywood movies. Not stuff that's totally avant garde and daring, but doing stuff that's in other languages and not using stars and using real people - things that they generally don't do in mainstream films.

'Eraserhead' is a weird, horrible nightmare, and it doesn't narratively make sense. Stuff's happening, but you honestly feel like you're in a nightmare, and it has such disturbing imagery that it stays with you forever once you've seen it.

When people direct insults at me, I can take it.

What's important for me is staying healthy.

The one negative to horror is that it's always law of diminishing returns. When you go in the funhouse, the ride is never scary the second time. You will never have that pure experience as when you first watch it.

My phobias worsen as I get older. I'm scared of flying, driving. I'm terrified of sharks. I'm a germaphobe. But I try to face my fears; I do. Well, most of them.

There's fear in everything, but we can't just succumb to that. We have to suppress it, so we get used to suppressing fear to make it through the our day. Otherwise, we'd become paralyzed by them.

I get a little too obsessive with work.

I have so many different projects, I hear voices in my head - the characters talking all at once - and I have to write to make them stop.

There's a crazy, false notion that audiences are not patient or will not watch a story, that you have to put in a scare every ten minutes. But I always thought that was insane.

I feel like in the '90s, horror just lost its way and everything became so safe and watered-down.

I'd love to see us get to a point where you can make a movie and not worry about the limits of the violence. Then I think they'd get so violent that people would get bored of it.

I've always dreamed of having a year-round haunted house.

When I go see an R-rated horror movie, I want lots of violence.

People want to be disturbed when they go see a horror movie.

You know, the dirty secret in the Director's Guild is that the average life expectancy of Director's Guild members is 57 years old. The stress level is so high and directors are generally really out of shape, cause they sit in the chair and they eat craft service.

Anytime you make a movie, the goal is a wide theatrical release, with the right distributor.

You know, the best thing you can say about a horror film is, 'Don't see it.'

Horror audiences don't need to see some TV actor they're familiar with.

Much of my youth was spent in the parking lot or inside a Dunkin' Donuts.

If someone gets up and walks out of the movie, it means it's really affected them.

As a kid, I was the neighbourhood baby-sitter - very responsible, always in charge.