Everything starts with writing. And then to support your vision, your ideas, your philosophy, your jokes, whatever, you've gotta perform them and/or direct them, or sometimes just produce them.

My job is to go out and entertain the most people possible.

I loved Westerns as a little kid, and I loved horror films.

I'm rather secular. I'm basically Jewish. But I think I'm Jewish not because of the Jewish religion at all.

Every now and then, I have blissful moments of thanking God for all the amazing things that are happening. When I leave the White House after just meeting Obama or when I see my face on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' or when I meet someone who tells me that their daughter is inspired by me, those are moments that are incredibly joyful.

The joy of great fiction is that it transports the reader to another world, where new characters live in otherwise unimaginable ways. It is one of the most powerful ways of generating empathy that I know.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.