Film Directors From The United States

"“It is a myth that rape is an inevitable part of conflict… There is nothing inevitable about it. It is a weapon of war aimed at civilians. It has nothing to do with sex — everything to do with power. It is done to torture and humiliate innocent people and often very young children.”"

"The great thing about having a bunch of kids is that they just remind you that you're the person who takes them to go poop,"

"Love one person, take care of them until you die. You know, raise kids. Have a good life. Be a good friend. And try to be completely who you are. And figure out what you personally love. And like go after it with everything you've got no matter how much it takes."

"You’d think, ‘What if I make a mistake today, I’ll regret it’. I don’t believe in regret, I feel everything leads us to where we are and we have to just jump forward, mean well, commit and just see what happens."

"Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life."

"If being sane is thinking there's something wrong with being different....I'd rather be completely fucking mental."

"“Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.”"

"“If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.”"

"“Make bold choices and make mistakes. It’s all those things that add to the person you become.”"

"I was a member of a group called the Kissy Girls. I was very sexual in kindergarten. I created a game where I would kiss the boys and give them cooties. Then we would make out and we would take our clothes off. I got in a lot of trouble!"

"I was horrified by the attacks against her, [but] Madonna knew the situation in Malawi, where he was born. In that country, there isn't really a legal framework for adopting. Personally, I prefer to stay on the side of the law."

"It is especially shocking that such a tragedy can go on, year after year, with the rest of the world paying so little attention to it. My Christmas message to Colombian refugees and to the millions of displaced people in Colombia is that the world has not totally forgotten them."

"Ask Mr. Lee what fad is in. Now you can wear and be X. Legacy turns novelty."

"See the fear and terror as black men run. White is right in the white man’s world, on the big white screen."

"What do you mean "gangsters"? It's business."

"Polonsky, along with Chaplin and Losey, remains one of the great casualties of the anti-Communist hysteria of the fifties."

"Twenty-one years between first and second films is longer than any director should have to wait. The case of Polonsky is one of the most dismal hangovers from the McCarthy period."

"Indians don't last in prison. They weren't born for it like the whites."

"What you doin' with such a big ol' dog in New York?" "Never had a wife."

"Yeah, yeah, I know I got rid of the headache. Now I got cancer."

"What are you gonna do? Kill me? Everybody dies."

"It was a great pleasure to make a movie again. Nothing is better; perhaps revolution, but there you have to succeed and be right, dangers which never attach themselves to making movies, and dreaming."

"First of all, directing is an idea that you have of a total flow of images that are going on, which are incidentally actors, words, and objects in space. It's an idea you have of yourself, like the idea you have of your own personality which finds its best representation in the world in terms of specific flows of imaginary images. That's what directing is."

"Every screenwriter worthy of the name has already directed his film when he has written his script."

"I am never quite sure whether I am one of the cinema's elder statesmen or just the oldest whore on the beat."

"I got a job at Metro and went in to see Louis Mayer, who told me he wanted me to be a producer. I said I wanted to write and direct. He said, "No, you have to produce first, you have to crawl before you can walk." Which is as good a definition of producing as I ever heard."

"I have a lot to be sad about. Not bitter in any way. But I think it can be fairly said that I've been in on the beginning, the rise, peak, collapse and end of the talking picture."

"It makes me feel like a very special person, that I'm able to make my living with my imagination. I developed a big respect for my calling while I was in school, and it remains with me to this day."

"I'm one of those people who feels that agriculture is a creative act. It's a very fine art — that's the way I approach it."

"Create turf, save water. Those are the two main principles. And, you know, keep everything alive. Maintain a game habitat. That's important so that you have an entire system at work. Cattle are going to do better, oddly enough, if the birds are doing good and the deer are doing good. You try to manage the whole thing."

"The old-timers thought, Well, fire's bad; we'll get rid of it. That was certainly a mistake. We have to get it back into the system somehow, in safe, controlled ways. That's what I'm into now."

"That piece of Hollywood shit with Billy Wilder [Buddy Buddy] is over, thank God. No outsider can imagine the stupidity, blustering hysteria, authoritarianism, and paralyzing boredom of shooting a flick for Billy Wilder. The so-called "actors" are simply trained poodles who sit up on their hind legs and jump through hoops. I thought the insanity would never stop. But I got a shitload of money."

"Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles isn't a realist."

"I just made pictures I would've liked to see."

"I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut."

"A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot."

"Eighty percent of a picture is writing, the other twenty percent is the execution, such as having the camera on the right spot and being able to afford to have good actors in all parts."

"An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation."

"I refuse to be pessimistic. I don't believe in it. I hope that we can find a way to keep from destroying the earth."

"I'm really concerned about the quality of education in the United States. I think it's going down, and I don't think we spend enough money on it. It's unhealthy for our society that we remove ourselves more and more every day from books, from reading, from writing. All areas of education need more emphasis. I think we're a bit lazy here in America. I believe in the ideal of the classic liberal education, and I also think athletics are very important to the education of young people."

"Oh, torture. Torture. My pubic hairs went gray."

"There is no such thing as science fiction, there is only science eventuality."

"Steven's films are marked most importantly by a faith in our common humanity. His stories have shaped America's story, and his values have shaped our world."

"I think there's a side of me that's trying to compete with Lucas and Spielberg — I don't usually admit this publicly — because I tend to think that they only go so far, and their view of the world is rather simplistic. What I want to do is take whatever cinema is considered normal or successful at a particular time and play around with it — to use it as a way of luring audiences in."

"[Steven Spielberg's films] are comforting, they always give you answers and I don't think they're very clever answers. … The success of most Hollywood films these days is down to fact that they're comforting. They tie things up in nice little bows and give you answers, even if the answers are stupid, you go home and you don't have to think about it. … The great filmmakers make you go home and think about it."

"Spielberg has been ridiculed for shooting his actors from below against impossibly Spielbergian skies and a denouement that lays the love on copiously. But there’s nothing simpleminded about how he uses movie magic, as a spell to dispel nihilism, to save us from the worst of ourselves by summoning up the best."

"I couldn't retire if I hadn't done The Psychiatrist, one thing that was absolutely right! I was a last-minute choice. I hadn't read the script when I came on the set. But I watched Spielberg directing — this kid, this infant in a cowboy hat — and I knew after five minutes we had something. You get so distrustful in this business that you get to expect nothing from a director. If he leaves you alone, he's a good director. But to find one like Spielberg who really brings a scene to life, who genuinely contributes — it makes you want to cry. It's like being an orphan all your life who is suddenly adopted."

"Watching violence in movies or TV programs stimulates the spectators to imitate what they see much more than if seen live or on TV news. In movies, violence is filmed with perfect illumination, spectacular scenery, and in slow motion, making it even romantic. However, in the news, the public has a much better perception of how horrible violence can be, and it is used with objectives that do not exist in the movies."

"People have forgotten how to tell a story."

"I interviewed survivors, I went to Poland, saw the cities and spent time with the people and spoke to the Jews who had come back to Poland after the war and talked about why they had come back."