Personal quotes:

I think that the Internet is going to effect the most profound change on the entertainment industries combined. And we're all gonna be tuning into the most popular Internet show in the world, which will be coming from some place in Des Moines. We're all gonna lose our jobs. We're all gonna be on the Internet trying to find an audience.

"Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to, and I see another movie I want to make."

[on winning the Best Director Oscar for Saving Private Ryan (1998)]: "Am I allowed to say I really wanted this?"

"Before I go off and direct a movie I always look at 4 films. They tend to be: "Seven Samurai" [Shichinin no samurai (1954)], Lawrence of Arabia (1962), _It's A Wonderful LIfe (1955)_ , and The Searchers (1956)."

"She is five feet four, but she looks six feet on the screen. In a two-shot with anyone, even Gable, your eyes fix on her. She is imperious, yet with a childlike sparkle. She is haughty, yet tender. She has no great range as an actress, yet within the range she can perform better than any of her contemporaries." - Commenting on friend Joan Crawford.

"I have made almost as many films in England as I have in America. I will come back to England again and again."

"I would love to see the British film industry get back on its feet again."

"I don't drink coffee. I've never had a cup of coffee in my entire life; that's something you probably don't know about me. I've hated the taste since I was a kid."

"I dream for a living."

"I'd rather direct than produce. Any day. And twice on Sunday."

"'Poltergeist' is the darker side of my nature, it's me when I was scaring my younger sisters half to death. In 'Poltergeist', I wanted to terrify, and I also wanted to amuse - I tried to mix the laughs and screams together." Commenting on the film Poltergeist (1982).

"With 'Star Wars', George (Lucas) put the butter back into the popcorn."

I always like to think of the audience when I am directing. Because I am the audience.

"The older I get, the more I look at movies as a moving miracle."

[When asked about being conflicted whether to make more artistic films, or more commercial films] "All the time, but when you have a story that is very commercial and simple, you have to find the art. You have to take the other elements of the film, and make them as good as possible, and doing that will uplift the film."

"Godzilla was the most masterful of all dinosaur movies because it made you believe it was really happening."

"I don't work weekends. Weekends are for my kids. And I have dinner at home every night when I'm not physically directing a movie - I get home by six. I put the kids to bed and tell them stories, and take them to school the next morning. I work basically from 9.30 to 5.30, and I'm strict about that. "

"I think every film I make that puts characters in jeopardy is me purging my own fears, sadly only to re-engage with them shortly after the release of the picture. I'll never make enough films to purge them all."

"I'm as guilty as anyone, because I helped to herald the digital era with Jurassic Park. But the danger is that it can be abused to the point where nothing is eye-popping any more. The difference between making Jaws 31 years ago and War of the Worlds is that today, anything I can imagine, I can realize on film. Then, when my mechanical shark was being repaired and I had to shoot something, I had to make the water scary. I relied on the audience's imagination, aided by where I put the camera. Today, it would be a digital shark. It would cost a hell of a lot more, but never break down. As a result, I probably would have used it four times as much, which would have made the film four times less scary. Jaws is scary because of what you don't see, not because of what you do. We need to bring the audience back into partnership with storytelling. "

"Being a movie-maker means you get to live many, many lifetimes. It's the same reason audiences go to movies, I think. When my daughter Sasha was 5 years old, we would be watching something on TV and she'd point to a character on screen and say, "Daddy, that's me." Ten minutes later a new character would come on screen and she'd say, "No, Daddy. That's me." Throughout the movie she would pick different people to become. I think that's what we all do. We just don't say it as sweetly. "

"After a scary movie about the world almost ending, we can walk into the sunlight and say, "Wow, everything's still here. I'm OK!" We like to tease ourselves. Human beings have a need to get close to the edge, and when filmmakers or writers can take them to the edge, it feels like a dream where you're falling, but you wake up just before you hit the ground."

"What I'm saying is that I believe in showmanship."

"Times have changed. It's like when the first 747 landed at Los Angeles international airport: everybody thought flying through the sky was the most greatest marvel they had ever seen - floating through the air, seemingly in slow motion. Today we never even look at 747s. They're a dime a dozen, and it's that way with the blockbuster. If there was one blockbuster every three years, it meant a lot more than when you have a blockbuster every three weeks. It's the job of each of these studios to market these movies as the must-see movie of the year, so they go after blockbuster status by creating a grand illusion. Sometimes they've got a real engine behind that grand illusion, meaning the movie is damned good and the audience will say they got their money's worth. Other times the audience comes on the promise of seeing something they've never ever seen before and it becomes just another sci-fi action yarn, and they feel disappointed."