Good music comes out of people playing together knowing what they want to do and going for it. You have to sweat over it and bug it to death. You can't do it by pushing buttons and watching a TV screen.

Sometimes airport security people recognize me. I'll go through the whole screening process and at the end they'll go 'Hey man I really like your work.' That's so cool.

Computers are scary. They're nightmares to fix lose our stuff and on occasion they crash producing the blue screen of death. Steve Jobs knew this. He knew that computers were bulky and hernia-inducing and Darth Vader black. He understood the value of declarative design.

I think we are at the very beginning of high changes not only in terms of digital film but in the way the movies will be screened whether they'll be screened on phones on computers - on everything.

What I was proud of was that I used very few parts to build a computer that could actually speak words on a screen and type words on a keyboard and run a programming language that could play games. And I did all this myself.

A wonderful thing about a book in contrast to a computer screen is that you can take it to bed with you.

Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words.

When characters change on screen it makes you feel better about yourself. You think 'Oh I change too I'm constantly becoming a better person.'

You need someone to tell you how to do things like hitting your marks or driving a car so it looks right or getting out of a car so it doesn't take a million years of screen time.

If a movie is really working you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying in one way or another with the people on the screen.

You sell a screenplay like you sell a car. If someone drives it off a cliff that's it.

Death is a billion-dollar business. They can't even pass a law where it takes seven days to get a gun. Why don't you have to go through the same kind of screening you do to get a driver's license? It's totally insane.

If you play it straight it's funny - the best comedy is always played straight down the middle. The adjustment is understanding from the screenplay that a moment is hilarious.

It used to happen in villages and towns in China that they would have - I guess you'd call them beauty contests - where all of the women of a particular village or town would be seated behind these screens or curtains with only their feet showing.

People are patronizing the theatres with renewed enthusiasm - there is an entire picnic-like attitude when families go out to see movies which is a very good sign. They want to see larger-than-life characters on the big screen and not just watch movies on television or on DVDs.

I'm not dead and I don't have blue hair but some people say there are similarities. It is usually intolerable to watch myself onscreen but this time it's fine. I think it's beautiful and a real work of art.

In art scandal is a false narrative a smoke screen that camouflages rather than reveals. When we don't know what we're seeing we overreact.