My mother was terribly important to me, and I know how much I yearned for her in my youth, but I don't think I truly trusted her.

Growing up in England, of course you do absorb certain ways the royals wave their hands and carry themselves.

I did a lot of touring in my youth, and I learnt very quickly that giving is what it's all about. It's about the gift of making an audience feel great and forget their cares, if only for a few hours.

When I did 'The Sound of Music' and 'Mary Poppins' and 'The Americanization of Emily,' all three were in the can and had not yet been released. So I was driving around having a fine time learning about how to make movies and enjoying myself enormously, and then they were released, and it was quite an assault, in a way.

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.

When I was growing up, all my cousins had high-top fades. I thought it would be cool to see how long I could grow a high-top.

As I read more and more fairy tales as an adult, I found massive collusion between their 'subjects' and those in my fiction: childhood, nature, sexuality, transformation. I realized that it wasn't by accident that I was drawn to their narrative structure and motifs.

There are better ways we can transform this virulent hatred - by living our ideals, the Peace Corps, exchange students, teachers, exporting our music, poetry, blue jeans.