…we do not simply get showered with Hollywood money because we happened to write a little story about wizards one day. It’s not winning the lottery. It’s a real job, which real people do, and they have the same real problems as other real people.

The Smithsonian has always been able to rise above the political moment. I don’t see anything that stops that process.

If you haven’t sold your soul, you have to be willing to criticize the people you admire on your, quote, side, and my owning my bias by going out there onstage with Donald Trump and saying, “I’m voting for him, and you should, too” is a bonus when it comes to my credibility

In a democracy, that’s the only realistic path to Net Zero. Consent, not imposition. Honesty, not obfuscation. Pragmatism, not ideology.

In the past, human progress had to come at the cost of the environment. If we wanted energy, we had to burn wood or we had to burn fossil fuels. If we wanted to grow more food, we had to expand farmland, often at the cost of forests. But technology and innovation means we're very quickly decoupling these impacts, such that this conflict is no longer true.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

You don’t take a photograph, you make it.

I'm extremely ambitious. I don't know why people are afraid to say that. I won't sell my soul to the devil, but I do want success and I don't think that's bad.

If you get up early, work late, and pay your taxes, you will get ahead–if you strike oil.