Director Quotes

Listen. This will probably be the worst pain you have ever experienced in your life. Everything in your body will tell you to let go, but you have to hold on. You have to hold on, Maddy, no matter what. No matter how badly it hurts. You can never, never let go. Can you do that for me?

Actors, who should pride themselves on their singularity, are forever trying to be someone else. It isn't necessary for you, the actor, to like yourself— self-love isn't easy to come by for most of us— but you must learn to trust who you are. There is no one else like you.

Michael Shurtleff

A gym for the soul is a place where personal investment is required and the return is real.

Here's the first major lesson: Writing is not an activity. It's not something you sit down at the keyboard, and just start doing. That's called 'typing.' Typing is an activity... Writing is a process. And if you start thinking of it as a process, life gets so much easier.

When one is undone—sprawled across the cold tile of a public bathroom in a pool of one's own vomit, or shivering in the back of a taxi in a pair of urine-soaked skinny jeans with no money for cab fare and a dead cell phone battery—much like a wobbly toddler or an unhinged politician, one immediately looks for someone else to blame. God. Your parents. Ex-girlfriends. Undocumented immigrants. Marvin in Human Resources. China.

Mars tugs at the human imagination like no other planet. With a force mightier than gravity, it attracts the eye to the shimmering red presence in the clear night sky...

Voltaire was witty because he drank coffee. A conventional liquid stimulant.

Marcello Marchesi

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

I look at my roommates who are so proud of me that it makes me proud.

Adriana Trigiani

No Statue of Liberty ever greeted our arrival in this country...we did not, in fact, come to the United States at all. The United States came to us.

For me, self-discipline has never corresponded to a voluntary adhesion to norms invented by others. It has always been the first step towards breaking the chains.

I want to burn with the spirit of the times. I want all servants of the stage to recognize their lofty destiny. I am disturbed at my comrades' failure to rise above narrow caste interests which are alien to the interests of society at large. Yes, the theatre can play an enormous part in the transformation of the whole of existence.

Vsevolod Meyerhold

So we might say that the most important thing one can acquire in college is a well-functioning bullshit meter.

Andrew Delbanco

When a poor man, hungry and unseeing because his eyesight is failing, grabs me and starts begging, I feel the Nazi in myself. I abhor this man, and I want him to keep his hands off me.

Book-to-screen adaptations must always strive for two things: First, you must find a way to tell the broad story of the original plot; second, you must somehow reflect the spirit and texture of the novel—that is, you must transform a lot of words into a few pictures.

Tommy Lee Wallace

Since science is fashionable today, it allows its fraternity to propose cloddish monstrosities as a solution to man's problems in many fields. Fashion rules and, anyway, who but the experts can even dare to speak up?

Frank Schaeffer

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

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

The 'human situation,' in all its guises, is what good films are all about, and technical skill counts for nothing if it is used only to manufacture films which have little to do with humanity.

Don't you get it? It's the end of the world! That's exactly when you fall in love. When else?

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)

Stay true to what scares you. If you don't respect that, you can't scare anyone.

Andrés Muschietti

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

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.

It is an honor to be nominated as Director of National Intelligence. A robust and responsible intelligence infrastructure is essential to our homeland security, and if confirmed I will ensure our national security decision-makers have every piece of information they need to protect the American people from the threats facing our nation. There is no higher priority than keeping America safe, and I will utilize every tool at my disposal to make that happen.