20th-century Film Producer Quotes

Akira Kurosawa

Frank Zappa

George Lucas

Barbra Streisand

Michael Crichton

Abbas Kiarostami

Wim Wenders

Gradually I got tuned into the world — that happens on every movie. I did a women's movie, and I'm not a woman. I did a gay movie, and I'm not gay. I learned as I went along.

As a lobbyist, I thought it only natural and right that my clients should reward those members who saved them such substantial sums with generous contributions. This quid pro quo became one of hallmarks of our lobbying efforts.

I watched Someone to Watch Over Me the other night. I thought it was a really good movie. It's a great movie.

Because I'm fat, people believe I'm somehow vulnerable and easy to handle in a negotiation. Ever try to negotiate with a fat guy? We can be mean: Marvin Davis, Harvey Weinstein, Hermann Goering. No one screws around with us for long.

Bernie Brillstein

Cornered
by identities I never wanted to claim,
I ran.
Fast.
Hard
Deep
Inside myself.

My background in music came from me playing drums and piano as a young child. My grandmother was a pianist and I was influenced by her and my parents were playing rock records which influenced my drumming. I was a fan of film scores, rock, classical, jazz, and hip-hop in my early years and tried to learn as much about each of those genres as possible. I began writing music in a serious way in my teen years while I was playing in various bands and orchestras.

It's not enough to be Hungarian, you must have talent too.

Variant: It's not enough to be Hungarian, or a Jew, you also need some talent.

Alexander Korda

Adams' first law of television:

The weight of the backside is greater than the force of the intellect.

One of the greatest freedoms of living in America is being able to ask the question: "If I could do anything I wanted with my life - money being no object - what would I do?" In many parts of the world, people don't have the luxury of asking that question.

It should be a good story— speak about a time and place that is permanent. It should capture something wonderful with some great characters whether it's set in the past or in the future.

Ismail Merchant

Most of us have one big idea at some point in our lives. That Eureka! moment. It comes to us all in different ways, often by chance of serendipity.

Peter James (writer)

Singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain. What a glorious feeling, I'm happy again.

You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough.

Joseph E. Levine

After losing his shirt on a period drama about Napoleon:

Never, never, will I do another play where a guy writes with a feather.

Max Gordon (producer)

Where women are concerned, the rule is never to go out with anyone better dressed than you.

That man's ears make him look like a taxi-cab with both doors open.

Of Clark Gable

I hate Sunday, and I don't think I'll ever get over it. But I'm going to try.

Frank D. Gilroy

Like an enemy I knew as intimately as any friend, I came to know the nagging, constant emptiness of the incongruent life. I ignored myself and lived for people, purposes, and goals that weren't my own. I betrayed who I was and instead accepted a fictional substitute that was defined from the outside in.

My spiritual high naturally dissipated. At some point you've got to come out of the clouds and live real life. Again, it's just like falling in love. The feeling of euphoria is only temporary.

Pattie Mallette

There were nude pictures... a lot of it is erotic or sexual. But I don't view my collection as dirty in any way. I view it as art.

I consider myself British and have very happy memories of the UK. I spent the first 14 years of my life in England and never wanted to leave. When I was in Australia I went back to England a lot.

Mulder: Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted.

Asking Graham Greene if he would revise the last part of the screenplay for a remake of 'Ben Hur':

You see, we find a kind of anticlimax after the Crucifixion.

A child who had been introduced to misery in Saudi Arabia, a teenager who went to wage jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, a deeply devout Muslim who had graduated with honors in medicine, a man who had fed a stranger to wild dogs in Damascus, a zealot who had dosed three foreigners with smallpox and watched them die in agony, gave thanks to Allah for the blessings that had been bestowed upon him.

Some of us learned in a school of philosophy which taught that all was for the common good and nothing for oneself and have never, in any case, regarded the pursuit of happiness as anything other than an aberration of the human spirit.