Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Cocteau is someone who has made such a profound impression on me that there's no doubt he's influenced every one of my films.
There is a vast frontier that's going to take us a while to understand... it was very lunar, a very desolate place, isolated.
The idea that a lot of sons marry their mothers subconsciously, which I have done in my own life, was interesting to explore.
[Lyndon Baines ] Johnson is a big and larger-than-life guy, we just tried to give him the dynamic range that he actually had.
There are two kinds of homeland: one that is given is like a negative, and one that you have to conquer is like the positive.
One has to change one's life. Maybe this is easier for people who have nothing to do than for those who have something to do.
It's really helpful to have somebody to bounce off of and that will say, 'Yeah, that's a horrible idea. You shouldn't do it.'
I look at Las Vegas, and I see the absolute best of what we are as Americans, and I see the absolute worst, in the same city.
I'm pretty rigorous about the drafts I turn in. I don't turn in something that's so ungodly they go, 'What the hell is this?'
I kept hearing about this incredible guy called Tom Hardy. I started watching his work, and I was awestruck - he was amazing.
Time marches on and I don't care how people watch my movies as long as they see them. I don't care if they're on their phone.
What's better these days, television or film? It's a dead heat. In fact, one could argue for television with more regularity.
Direct cinema is about simulating a reality in which you're not having the overwhelming influence that you really are having.
What makes art powerful is a flash of recognition, a frightening encounter with something familiar about the human condition.
I think there are always going to be people who say, even if they are engaged in the movie, they just want it to move faster.
I'm strong-willed, but that doesn't mean I can't work with people if we're all in the mission of trying to make a good movie.
I'm lucky to be surrounded by incredibly talented people at Pixar, of course, and I learn a lot from them each and every day.
I wanted to make films that were culturally relevant in my own country, that challenged people, and that people talked about.
I don't think that movies are too violent. But I do think that popcorn is too expensive, and this can often lead to violence.
I think one of the basest of all things is fear. Fear erodes the individual. Fear erodes the nation, the spine of the nation.
I haven't acted in 10 years. I always talk about being an actor, and yet I've been focusing on making movies for a long time.
You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.
My whole career this is the biggest failure financially, but at the same time, it's one of my favorite things I've ever done.
I don't mind getting involved in a risky project as long as I don't have to stay married to it if the script turns out lousy.
Americans are not used to being bombed in their beds, but if you come from anywhere outside America, it's not highly unusual.
I'm not a walking encyclopedia. I'm not one of those types that knows every single film ever made or can recite every dialog.
It's tough to be an actor and it's tough to portray a real person, and it's tough to play two people adding up to one person.
The one thing with 3D presentations is I think that 3D itself, whether it's 24 or 48, is at a very interesting point in time.
It's interesting how the frame rate actually changes the perception of the 3D as well as making it more comfortable to watch.
100 years ago, movies were black-and-white, silent, and 16 frames a second. So 100 years from now, what are they going to be?
I like it when somebody tells me a story, and I actually really feel that that's becoming like a lost art in American cinema.
In non-fiction, I like Wayne Dyer. I have a compilation of his best quotes near my bed! To me he's one of the finest authors.
The pressure is always there to make good films, but that is more from your mindset, either you have it or you don't have it.
Nowadays, everything's evolved into superheroes and it's boring. If I see one more superhero movie I'm going to shoot myself.
The great attraction to 'American Gangster' is these two great characters who are absolute paradoxes within their own sphere.
'The Missing Picture' is about my story and my parents. Before this film, I never said 'I' in a film, so it is very personal.
My brother's a blast to direct; he's one of those great characters who brings so much to every scene he's in, and we're pals.
The trappings of a religious cult tend to fall into candlelit ceremonies and robes and group chanting and singing and prayer.
Why should the simple fact of your having more money entitle you to a greater share of the Earth's limited natural resources?
I don't like doing interviews. There is always the problem of being misquoted or, what's even worse, of being quoted exactly.
Indigenous people in films, it's all, like, nose flutes and panpipes and, you know, people talking to ghosts... which I hate.
It definitely could have been a horror story [Valley of Violence], oh my God, if the dog was impossible. So could the horses.
The hardest animal was the vulture. But the horses were great, the dog was great [in Valley of Violence]. It was really easy.
Anybody who knows me knows I would never read a comic book. And I certainly would never read anything written by Kevin Smith.
I was anathema in polite society after I made 'Last House.' People literally would grab their children and run from the room.
I was in Lahore before the partition, so I don't believe that a border can truly separate Punjab. I still think of it as one.
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm obsessed with tone in the movies. Tone has always been the main thing that I go after with a movie.
It took us nine months to write 'The East'; we didn't start writing it on the computer until seven and a half months into it.
I believe that the internet as an open platform for distribution could be a great chance for the diversity of film production.
Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.