Ron Howard

“3-D is a truly exciting possibility. Whether that's going to be something that sustains our interest, I'm not certain, but I think it will.”

“I was very intimidated by the visual effects world. But I began to realize that you don't have to know everything. You have to be able to talk about story.”

“I was a terrible science student, so I could never be a scientist; my mind doesn't work that way. But I've learned to love the stories around science, and I have so much respect and fascination for the people who can make discoveries and find applications. There's a lot of drama there.”

“Being a president is an impossible job - it's naive to think someone can do the job and not bend the law here and there.”

“I love leaving the door open to good ideas. I love the collaborative swirl. I get charged by problem-solving, usually under some kind of stress - the sun is going down, and we have eight minutes, and we have to solve it. Great things come out of it.”

“My obligation is to the movie audiences.”

“If you think about it, for almost any moment, any mood that you might be in, there's probably a Beatles song that will address that mood, that feeling, that set of emotions. I don't know that that can be said about very many groups, if any.”

“If I had to choose between a great acting job and a good directing job, I'd choose the directing job.”

“I love all kinds of stories and movies, and I did work hard to get through to the creative community and studio executives that I could work in a number of different genres and tones.”

“I never wanted to be a brand director. I didn't want that kind of stamp. I wanted to be more like Pacino or Dustin Hoffman or Meryl Streep or De Niro - you know, a chameleon as a storyteller - because I love all kinds of movies.”

“I've been around a lot of artists who are also good at business, and... one minute they'll sound like an artist, and the next minute, they'll sound like the characters in 'Mad Men.' Jay-Z's a very good businessman, and he talks about it and enjoys it, but he doesn't shift.”

“Don't make election popularity largely a matter of which candidate hires the most creative and effective propagandists. Insist that it be, instead, a running conversation with the public.”

“A scene, a day of shooting, can often make you feel kind of stupid and inept because your one job is to anticipate and react and know what to go for.”

“I have very close friends who are very devout Catholics, and I talked to them before the 'Da Vinci Code,' and it was very difficult for them, but I talked to them before 'Angels and Demons,' and they said the scandal, abuse of power and violence was part of church history, which you can read about in the Vatican bookstore.”

“Can you imagine the first time they figured out how to mechanically raise somebody up through the stage and make them appear, or drop them down on a rope or a wire? It blew everybody's minds, I'm sure.”

“I have a grandson who's both really interested in art and all things mechanical, so I think he'll get a huge kick out of 'Apollo 13' someday. And I think my granddaughters will enjoy 'Splash.'”

“Early in the second season of 'The Andy Griffith Show,' I ventured a suggestion for a line change to make it sound more 'like the way a kid would say it.' I was just 7 years old. But my idea was accepted, and I remember standing frozen, thrilled at what this moment represented to me.”

“Anytime you really take a close look at people who are dealing with the aging process, you're going to have a complicated reaction to what you're seeing and feeling. If you're in the middle of it, those emotions are going to be quadrupled. It's immediate, it's relatable, so it's good human drama.”

“My wife and I invest very, very conservatively.”

“From when I was a young boy, I wanted to be the first person to direct a movie at 100.”