We owe it to the audience to put more characters onscreen that reflect them and that speak to issues of race and gender as well as to a character's sexual preference.

I don't understand why people still behave as though making movies with female protagonists is risky, given that - hello - we do make up over 50 percent of the population, and we go to movies.

There are still so few female directors. There are far fewer writers than we'd like to see.

When doing family entertainment, you don't actually worry about kids. You know what you can't do. But in terms of sensibility and sophistication and wit and ambition, aim for your own taste level, and kids will - if they're interested in the subject matter - be glad that you did.

My teacher told me I'd never amount to anything. I left high school at 15, after one year. But my real teachers were all the people around me. And I was a good listener.

We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them.

I'd done all the things I thought a person had to do in order to be successful and fulfilled, like getting a great education and becoming a lawyer, and yet there was zero spark in my life. But there was no light-bulb moment. It was gradual. In the early 1990s, I decided to experiment and try some new ways of living.

Really, my sacred place is my study where there are books that I love and things that people have given me.