“I regret not the things I have done, only those I have yet to do.”

Working hard is very important. You’re not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard.

We were always dreaming of how it was going to be.

We are all living in cages with the door wide open.

Being in Washington is more fictional than being in Hollywood.

You need peers; you need people who are at the same level you are. You never know in life when you’re going to need help, and you never know who you’re going to need it from.

All democracies turn into dictatorships – but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it’s Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea.

If America is the pursuit of happiness, the best way to pursue happiness is to help other people.

Success is when you try to achieve your inward vision externally and have it come off the way you see it. Then YOU feel successful about it; that’s how success is measured.

Train yourself to let go of the things you fear to lose.

I’ve discovered that most critics themselves are cinematically illiterate. They don’t really know much about movies. They don’t know the history. They don’t know the technology. They don’t know anything. So for them to try to analyze it, they’re lost.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

It’s not a matter of how well can you make a movie. It’s how well can you make it under the circumstance, because there’s always circumstances. You cannot use that as an excuse.

Someday you’re going to have to learn to separate what seems to be important from what really is important.

The one way the world hasn’t changed: teaching is still the most important job.

But having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences – is very, very important to actually being able to make movies.

Education is the single most important job of the human race.

I haven’t been to rehab, I don’t do anything eccentric – I’m really boring.

Questing… is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself.

I’d love to go on a safari – I’ve never been on a safari.

The open road is the wanderer’s wonderland.

Let’s go on an adventure, oh, the place we will go! and with you by my side, I am always at home.

Lots of the things we do are dangerous, but life itself is dangerous; nothing is really worth bothering with that isn’t full of danger

I’d love to go and camp out and live in a tent in the middle of nowhere and see how long I could live and survive.

The open road is the wanderer’s wonderland.