People need meeting places. You need places where ideas get exchanged and you see each other's faces once in a while.

My ego is one thing. Of course I want people to like what I do. Of course. There's no doubt. You wouldn't do it. But I think what people don't fully know is how responsible you feel for so many entities. So many hardworking people who've collaborated.

I'm always looking for instances of people doing things for and with each other for pleasure, for passion, for camaraderie, from kindness. It's the anthropology of people figuring how to punctuate life with the lyrical.

Some people have these small, positive schemes for survival, a kind of strength that I am attracted to, maybe because I'm prone to the blues.

There's a period where you feel very hinky and low about yourself, like, 'That was a lot of time, and there's nothing to show for it.' I've tried to tell myself that if you're going to be a filmmaker, you can't really talk like that about time, because you'll hate yourself or feel very worthless.

The Oscars have always been an arena in which very commercial films are recognised, and I don't mean that in a bitter way; I just didn't ever look in that direction.

We're always on the search for a novel or a source or an existing screenplay, or writing something ourselves that turns us on. But because films cost a lot of money to make and a huge amount of effort to get the people to rally, you have to really like it; you can't just semi-like it. Getting to 'really like' is the part that takes the minute.

You can't make movies without known names, and unknowns can't become known, because they can't get work.

You gotta call it out first; it always has to be called out when we need social change, but this is how social change happens: you call it out. People had to call out child labor. People had to call out, 'Hey time's up; we need to vote. We live in this country.' People had to call out 'time's up' on enslaving people, you know.

'The Book of Love' is the kind of James L. Brooks mainstream movie that the majors are ignoring.

We're going to come back to Oregon, whether it's with another show, or a pilot, or a movie. We love working up there. I think it's got one of the most amazing talent pools of any state in the union.

There's a real difference now in what you can get out of film and the rise of digital platforms.

We don't over-manage projects like the studios do.

A lot of sci-fi shows are very cold, too concerned with hardware.

In tough times, we all hope for knights in shining armor, or the cavalry, to show up and effect change.

Stories about travelers coming into town and doing good have been part of our storytelling since the Bible.

I'm a huge Trekkie.

The real trick to these movies and making the big action sequences work - and I've forgotten this sometimes and screwed it up - the characters really have to be humanized. Because you can have the greatest special effects in the world, but if you don't care about the people in those effects, there's no impact.

In movies, we've run out of ideas for bad guys. We end up with politically incorrect villains, like Arab terrorists or Latin drug dealers or corrupt politicians. Well, aliens are the best film villains since the Nazis. You don't have to worry about offending anyone.

I don't think of myself as a former actor. I think of myself as a reformed actor.

The truth is, we were sick of, every time we finished a movie, having to start all over again from nothing, going to a studio, pitching an idea, setting up a new office.

Spielberg is our hero. For him to make a nod to 'Godzilla' just before we make our movie is like getting the king to acknowledge you at dinner.

We have to produce a high-quality show, but we have less and less time and money to do it. If you are using the tapeless approach to save money, you will.

If you were around when 'Them!' or 'Tarantula' came out, those effects were as good as you had ever seen.