“What I wanted to do was to get that sense of being in touch with this ...” — Stephen Greenblatt Quote

What I wanted to do was to get that sense of being in touch with this lost world while holding onto what draws readers and audiences there in the first place.

The Shakespeare that Shakespeare became is the name that's attached to these astonishing objects that he left behind.

The quintessential emblem of religion — and the clearest manifestation of the perversity that lies at its core — is the sacrifice of a child by a parent.

My father who in this case was an obsessive life-long storyteller, and by a very peculiar trick of my father's. My father would tell a very, very long story, and the punch line would be in Yiddish.

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

I tell public audiences, don't go to a podiatrist for brain surgery; don't go to an astronomer for planetary science.

I never thought a film about a sperm donor could work with audiences in India, but it did.

I have been very fortunate since 'Ice Age' to make movies that somehow charm audiences. I think that the key to it for me has been coming up with the right ideas but, more importantly, choosing the right collaborators and artists to execute those ideas.