I have always tried to live by the 'awe principle.' That is: Can I find awe, wonder and enchantment in the most mundane things conceivable?

Disruption is in my genes. My father owned one of the first discount toy stores, Duane's Toyland, in Albany and Schenectady, near where I grew up. Discount was always a huge disruptor - it disrupted Sears Roebuck.

Tribeca Film Festival Doha will be both an industry festival and an audience festival, not just an event for insiders. Community outreach will be a major part of what we're doing. We'll put filmmakers in touch with local, regional, and international audiences.

In December of 2001, after September 11th, my wife, Jane Rosenthal, and Robert DeNiro asked me if I would help them create the Tribeca Film Festival. The idea was to revitalize lower Manhattan. We would show films on piers, in high schools. It was all about the community. We wanted it to be accessible to everybody.

Creativity runs on automatic, no matter what's happening in other parts of my life. I can't help myself. It's been in me, and it evolves in me over the years. It's a condition in me.

I've always had a good imagination. If I saw a sitcom, and everything was made out of cheese, I wouldn't go 'What?' I wouldn't get angry. I'd think, 'Right, OK, all cheese? Amazing.'

Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty - as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it.

As a fiction writer, my favorite tools are my imagination and the peculiar opportunities offered by different points of view.