Anybody who gives away money is mostly looking at things where they think they can make a difference. I'm trying to help people who helped me, educational institutions that helped me with scholarships, or organizations that were very useful to me in growing up.

Probably in 2035 we will pass that mantle on to China. It will be the biggest economy in the world, and it will go way past us and way past India. Given the growth, the size, the opportunities, I don't think there's any other place in the world that can match it.

I am involved in a lot of nonprofits. And when I reached the ripe old age of 60, I wanted to provide leadership to some I had been involved in.

I'm on a lot of nonprofit boards, but if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't do it. I haven't yet done anything that's transformational in philanthropy. But I hope at some point to target two or three causes or organizations and really make transformational gifts.

Their argument, and I think it's a correct one, is that they'll make more money from the trades and the hardcovers if nobody messes with the creative team.

My father owned pit bulls when I was young. He sometimes fought them. My brother and a lot of the men in my community owned pit bulls as well: sometimes they fought them for honor, never for money.

Perhaps one day earthquakes, hurricanes and financial crashes will all be predictable. But we don't have to wait until then for seismology, meteorology and economics to become sciences; they already are.

Making films requires the creative skills you'd expect, but it also demands immense non-creative skills, like the ability to raise all that money and the savviness to work the studio's politics.