Our rule is: If it makes the parent laugh, and the kid asks why, that can't be an uncomfortable conversation.

The more and more I work with really great actors, the more it's about opening yourself up to what they bring.

Animals have been reduced to objects for production, and their lives are designed around our needs and desires.

'The Hobbit' by J. R. R. Tolkien was the first book I enjoyed. I was 14 and when I finished I started it again.

I saw footage of a well-known pastor holding a Bible and saying, "This book says homosexuals should be killed."

All the politicians in Uganda play to their fundamentalist benefactors in America because of the flow of money.

While growing up, I lived in my own fantasy world. I had kind of a rough childhood, so I created my own reality.

I think the thumb print on the throat of many people is childhood trauma that goes unprocessed and unrecognized.

There can always be an 'Idol' without anybody. I believe that Seacrest is probably the best host in the business.

Expectations that black directors have to make black films about black subject matter are, to me, kind of absurd.

Films about the English monarchy, they tend to have a lavishness, sumptuous imagery, it's all very posh and rich.

They wouldn't call it falling in love if you didn't get hurt sometimes, but you just pick yourself up and move on.

'Mary Poppins,' the movie, was an object of mockery if you were a student in the '60s, something to be laughed at.

American missionaries have free rein in Uganda. They can go anywhere they please - schools, hospitals, parliament.

Racism is a global problem and it is as damaging to Whites as it is to non-Whites. Everyone must fight against it.

It is important for American congregations to hold their churches accountable for what their money does in Africa.

I have an adult emotional life and an editing system inside me which prevents me from being preposterously stupid.

When you take on a project, you have to be certain that you can make the best version of whatever it is youre given.

The minute you take away somebody the public's voting for, you're screwing with the program. There's no logic to it.

Why should someone be allowed to remain a voting member of the Academy if they are no longer active in the industry?

When you take on a project, you have to be certain that you can make the best version of whatever it is you're given.

Everything people say about grandparenthood is true - it is pleasure without responsibility. It is unquestioned love.

Imagine that you're a gay man and you're spending all your time with people who believe you are possessed by the devil.

Any job ends up with stress, and certainly there's always a deadline looming when you work in TV. It's sort of constant.

I've always argued, unsuccessfully, that there's no point in giving money to the arts unless you educate people in them.

I think directors can become overly infatuated by gilt and gold, and the word "lavish" and everything being magnificent.

I think directors can become overly infatuated by gilt and gold, and the word 'lavish' and everything being magnificent.

The product Disney created actually changed a life, and that was significant to them. They didn't stand in my way at all.

What's fascinating about the Australians is they have this quality that they are impervious to majesty. They're not awed.

The first time I saw the Dutch character known as Black Pete, or Zwarte Piet, my heart sank, and I felt a little nauseated.

I can't think of anyone I admire who isn't fuelled by self-doubt. It's an essential ingredient. It's the grit in the oyster.

I was a chronically shy child. That kernel of my younger self is still there, but I've developed mechanisms to deal with it.

The ceiling was curved, giving the space a cave-like feel, and it was either very large, very small, or sort of normal-sized.

What we hold in our heads - our memory, our feelings, our thoughts, our sense of our own history - is the sum of our humanity.

Since I've been in the U.S. I've lost the back of my heart, 15 ft. of intestine and my marriage - and God, I miss my intestine.

Gay Africans must speak up and let everyone know they are there, they have always been there, and that they are not going away.

I started drawing in first grade. Because the kid next to me was drawing, and I remember thinking: I want to be able to do that!

I made a film about a person living with a disability. Those kinds of films are often about the disability, not who a person is.

I saw 'The Godfather' in London when it came out in 1972 and loved it. I've seen it probably 20 times - I always find something new.

I've never seen, heard, nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn't be talked about. Hell yes, I'm for debating anything!

A place makes a deep impression on you when you're young. It lives with you. It's like your childhood. It fertilises the imagination.

'Survivor' was, to me, an absolute reaction that the audience was having to the sort of staid nature of narrative drama on television.

As a director, you always want things to look good. You're always trying to make things look tidy. That's what we're all trained to do.

There is much institutionalized racism in The Netherlands and the non-White population is just now beginning to fight for their rights.

I came from a very poor family. And I was able to rise up and actually win an Academy Award. And if I can do it, then any kid can do it.

When you are in the prayer room you forget about the outside world and fall into a Christian rock coma, and nothing else seems to matter.

I had my own Land of Lost Sidekicks, where I pretended I lived in Paris with my best friend, a little cowboy based on a Marky Maypo doll.

Governments have always been wary of the arts because they're wayward and ambiguous and because they deal with feelings rather than facts.

I am interested in the gap between what people say and what they think - the undiscovered world of people's lives. Lives of quiet desperation.

American movies are often very good at mining those great underlying myths that make films robustly travel across class, age, gender, culture.

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