When a kid can understand that a word can mean two things, there's some real thinking going on. They have a vested interest in finding out what a word means, because it's the punch line to a joke.
When I was a kid, back in the '40s, I was a voracious comic book reader. And at that time, there was a lot of patriotism in the comics. They were called things like 'All-American Comics' or 'Star-Spangled Comics' or things like that. I decided to do ...
One of the things that concerns me is the lack of adult supervision, and more specifically, caring adult supervision, at various reform schools and juvenile detention centers. I think there's a kind of Darwinian brutality that can run rampant when ki...
If power is the only important thing, then Frodo loses against Sauron. Hell, if power’s the only important thing then Gandalf loses against Sauron. If magic is the deciding factor of a fight, then four plucky kids from England get their asses turne...
Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don't care if they lose it; they'll just make another one.
When all the kids answered "fireman", "dentist", "mother", "want to marry a rich guy" and "astronaut", mine was "rockstar" when we grow up. Half of that was met. I knew I wouldn't be happy with any other occupation that was not in the entertainment b...
You've never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, 'We can't believe it happened here. We can't believe it's these suburban white kids.' It's only them!
'Jaws' was the definitive filmmaking turning point for me. It came out in the summer of '75 and I saw it an obsessive 55 times. They even ran a very embarrassing article about me in the local paper, about the weird kid who's seen 'Jaws' 55 times.
One of my first memories of being a kid was, 'I want to have a real job when I grow up.' And to me that meant you wear a suit and a hat and carry a briefcase and go to your job.
I became a clown when these docs came to the house in Berkeley and asked me to come cheer up kids. I'd just had my third spinal fusion and I was looking for something to take my mind off the pain I was in.
I just took the idea that King Kong was too big for everything and reversed it and put George in a land of giants, which is basically what every kid goes through anyway - that, you know, the world is made for grownups, for tall people, for the giants...
When I was a kid, I was surrounded by girls: older sisters, older girl cousins just down the street... except for an older boy named Vito who threw rocks. Each year I would wish for a baby brother. It never happened.
As a kid I didn't see black cowboys on the screen. What that said to me was that there were things I couldn't do or be because of my color. What we see others like us do gives us permission to expand our own horizons.
There are so many bad influences out there. I don't care if a kid is rich or poor, if he lives in a million-dollar house or the ghetto, he is going to find some sick things on the street. And if we don't clean it up soon, we're all going to pay the p...
With three kids, it was always very, very tight, and it was always a scramble for what was my next job. So I learned never to go into debt because I don't want those monthly payments to preoccupy my thoughts.
Because I am interested in the growth and development of early hominids, I play with my kids, you know, looking at their teeth or measuring their heads, which they like also, because it's kind of fun.
I don't watch much television. My old TV agent used to always get mad at me because he'd send me out on auditions and I'd be like, 'What's this show?' and he'd be like, 'It's literally the top show on television.' I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a ki...
I like taking a path into new country, and I always take the darker path. Not because it's dark, but because there's a secret there that you can share when you get out. That's what I liked as a kid. That's how I approach my work. With a face like min...
I don't want my kids to grow up with no father like I did. I came to the conclusion a while ago that you can work until midnight and not be finished or you can work until 6 or 7 and not be finished. I decided I'd rather work until 6 or 7.
For some reason, Superman seems to be held to higher standards on the subject of secret/super identities than other superheroes. No one ever says, 'Peter Parker was a nerdy kid. He can't possibly be Spider-Man, attract a good-looking gal, work in a n...
The capacity for people to kid themselves is huge. Living on illusions or delusions, and the re-establishing of these illusions or delusions requires a big effort to keep them from being seen through. But a very old idea is at work behind our current...
