When I was growing up, I don't remember being told that America was created so that everyone could get rich. I remember being told it was about opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. Not happiness itself, but the pursuit.

I mean I have a project that I have been wanting to make for quite a while now; and basically, it's a story of my parents growing up in the Lower East Side.

I certainly wasn't able to get it when I was a kid growing up on the Lower East Side; it was very hard at that time for me to balance what I really believed was the right way to live with the violence I saw all around me - I saw too much of it among the people I knew.

I go through periods, usually when I'm editing and shooting, of seeing only old films.

What's dangerous is the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few individuals.

There has been a banking crisis, a financial crisis, an economic crisis, a social crisis, a geostrategic crisis and an environmental crisis. That's considerable in a country that's used to being protected.

If the money we donate helps one child or can ease the pain of one parent, those funds are well spent.

I deal with foreign countries. I made a lot of money dealing against China. I've made a lot of money dealing against many other countries.