Quotes from Ron Howard

I was never a comic book guy. I like the movies when I see them, especially the origin stories. I never felt like I could be on the set, at 3 o'clock in the morning, tired, with 10 important decisions to make, and know, intuitively, what the story needs. For me, I'd be copycatting and not inventing. I've never said yes to one.

I used to feel that I had to be dictatorial in order to be respected, but after I did a couple of TV movies, I began to see that authority came with the job. So I began to relax and let more people into the process, and my work really improved.

I'm lucky in a lot of ways. And in my family life, my home life, is where I count myself the luckiest.

I didn't really listen to music when I was doing homework or when I - when I work on a script. I tend to drift to NPR and news.

I was a Beach Boys guy, but I was won over. In '64, as the radio stations were creating this duel between The Beatles and The Beach Boys, I slowly but surely got won over by the Mop Tops.

I think it gets overused and tossed around in ways that aren't true. Every impressive achievement is not genius.

Even when you're 22 and you feel immortal, you know in your heart you're not.

Richard Dreyfuss, when we were doing 'American Graffiti,' was pumping me to vote for McGovern. But I think I wound up going for Nixon. I thought he could get us out of the Vietnam War quickly. Ha.

When you're young and you're striving, it's all uphill, and it's easier to climb. Then, when you get and look around, you sort of say, 'Wow, the altitude's kinda thin up here!'

There is something inherently tough about Americans. They will not accept defeat.

My folks met at the University of Oklahoma, in the theater department in the 1940s. They were married touring the country in 'Cinderella' and 'Snow White.' My mother was married in Cinderella's costume; the dwarves were the best men.

There was a combination of shyness and just fear of looking stupid that kept me out of a lot of interesting creative conversations that I could have had at an early age.

I'd say that 'In the Heart of the Sea' is the most challenging movie I've made. It was tough to figure out how to lead this large cast into some very sensitive, intense, emotional scenes.

My wife and I invest very, very conservatively.

Instead of candidates hiring people, like yours truly, to create campaign media that works on both conscious and subconscious levels to sway the voting public, what if all TV ads were, by law, only allowed to feature the candidate, with, say, the American flag as the backdrop, alone, speaking directly to the camera?

When I occasionally indulge in sort of a 'look back' at highlights, it's so interesting - it almost never comes from an image on a set or even the Academy Awards. It's almost always a family trip or meeting and falling in love with Cheryl.

I think child stars have a leg up, actually, because they have an innate sense of what creative problem solving is all about. But to make a life out of it, you have to be ready to take on project after project. You have to like the action.

When you read about it, you realize that mental illness is so prevalent. People didn't always have the right terms for it, but most families have had a brush with it.

The hardest thing which I've experienced is calling up my father, Rance Howard, who's a wonderful actor, and telling him I've had to cut him out of the movie, which I've had to do twice. That's a lump-in-the-throat phone call.

Once or twice in the height of 'Happy Days' excitement, which had more to do with Henry Winkler as The Fonz than ever had to do with me, we were kind of like a boy band for a year or so, and we would go out on personal appearances and feel the limousine rocking, and the grabbing at your clothes and people trying to steal your cap.

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.

I've acted with all types, I've directed all types. What you want to understand, as a director, is what actors have to offer. They'll get at it however they get at it. If you can understand that, you can get your work done.

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.'

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.