The problem with 'Don't Be Afraid of the Dark' was that it was designed to be a PG-13 movie. It was literally a horror movie for a younger generation. I was trying to do the film equivalent of teenage, young adult readers, and when they gave it an R rating, the movie couldn't sustain an R.

I'm fortunate enough that my personal life falls into whack with my professional life. My kids love visiting the sets; they love the monsters.

When you start with Super 8, you are everything. You're the DP, the sound man, the effects guy. And what I started understanding, by working for other people, is that the best type of director is someone who rose through the ranks.

I have said no to many, many Day of the Dead projects in the past, about 10 or 15, because every time I heard a take it was from someone who didn't know the celebration.

I run for president because I believe that we can't just save the American dream; we can expand it to reach more people and change more lives than ever before.

Never give up, which is the lesson I learned from boxing. As soon as you learn to never give up, you have to learn the power and wisdom of unconditional surrender, and that one doesn't cancel out the other; they just exist as contradictions. The wisdom of it comes as you get older.

The older you get, the more fragile you understand life to be. I think that's good motivation for getting out of bed joyfully each day.

Inspiration in Science may have to do with ideas, but not in Art. In art it is in the senses that are instinctively responsive to the medium of expression.