20th-century Director Quotes

Year in and year out, under the guise of the Ridiculous, we attempt the Sublime.

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again.

George Miller (director)

Very few people have a lot of time to dedicate to one hobby. I was fortunate to have started so young, because when you're young you have nothing but time. Hours and hours to burn up on something as silly as a movie.

Robert Rodriguez

Love is a self-manifested notion depending on how lonely you are - so if you're really attracted to someone, and you're really lonely, I think you can fall in love in an instant. It's all about where you're at.

Kiefer Sutherland

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Lewis Allen (director)

I want everybody really lost, and I want us all to be at home there. Something like that. Actually I am not interested in that, but I mean that's what you could do. Lots of people would like it. I have to say finally what I am interested in, like Socrates: peace... rest... nothing.

Nothing is nicer than diving with your eyes open. Diving down as far as the shimmering legs of your mother and father who have just come back from swimming and now are wading to shore through the shallow water. Nothing more fun than to tickle them and to hear, muffled by the water, how they shriek because they know it will make their child happy.

Jenny Erpenbeck

Man, I ain't poor. Look, I give away stuff to the Salvation Army. You can't give nothing away to Salvation Army if you poor.

Charles Burnett (director)

Modern Imams must strive to ensure that no Muslim finds solace for terrorism in the Quran, they must cite the Quran as evidence that the murder of innocents is not permitted by good, believing Muslims, and must immediately refute all claims to the contrary.

I will, then, always love sin and the world until I truly sense that Christ is better.

The humble listen to their brothers and sisters because they assume they have something to learn. They are open to correction, and they become wiser through it.

The line between seduction and prostitution is very blurred, and deep down, everyone knows it.

Virginie Despentes

I know people who say Hollywood broke her heart, and all that, but I don't believe it. She was very observant and tough minded and appealing, but she adored and trusted the wrong people. She was very courageous-you know the book Twelve Against the Gods? Marilyn was like that, she had to challenge the gods at every turn.

Ginger Rogers was one of the worst, red-baiting, terrifying reactionaries in Hollywood.

Come to think of it, Pasadena's as good a place to die as any.

I make sure that they photograph everything they do. And they have to have a portfolio to graduate. You know, there's no formula for success out there, but what works is: learn how [to photograph], photograph everything you do and you put those photographs in front of people that can help hire you. That works.

But that's not how most of the people mentioned in this book became wealthy. Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful.

Charles Ferguson (filmmaker)

I think my mother was like a small company which, because things are not ship-shape, keeps two sets of books, one for the auditors and then there's the other one.

Michael Lindsay-Hogg

America faces grave threats both here and abroad, and the FBI, in concert with its federal, state, and local partners continues to work steadfastly to prevent and hold accountable those responsible for these threats.

Christopher A. Wray

Immigration is not a simple issue. There are at least three major parts of it: there's border security, legal immigration, and the status of the 11 million, 15 million, 30 million … pick a number – it's the status of the folks who are here illegally. People say, 'oh, comprehensive reform is a bad idea.' Ok? But, unless you deal with all three of those you haven't dealt with immigration.

In 2004, I joined my father, John Kerry, on the trail in his bid for the United States presidency.

Alexandra Kerry

Love is the most important ingredient to any meaningful relationship. It is fundamental to true significance. Your quality of life is directly tied to the amount of love flowing in you and through you to others. Though it's often overlooked, love is infinitely more valuable than riches, fame, and honor. They will pass away, but love remains. You can be fulfilled without these, but not without love.

Is it possible to have an endless series of successes without falling on our faces? I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can't do.

I do not like the Broadway theatre because it does not know how to say hello. The tone of voice is false, the mannerisms are false, the sex is false, ideal, the Hollywood world of perfection, the clean image, the well pressed clothes, the well scrubbed anus, odorless, inhuman, of the Hollywood actor, the Broadway star. And the terrible false dirt of Broadway, the lower depths in which the dirt is imitated, inaccurate.

There are some things which cannot be learned, though they can be studied. Among them are the laws of art—and the lawlessness of it, as well.

Josef von Sternberg