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Quotes by Director

"What you're doing is putting into professional play the way that you relate to other people, the way that you analyze and relate to a written text, the way that you would persuade anybody to do anything. It has to do with listening, with humility and a sense of yourself."

"There were not fifteen people in the story department and twenty-five producers and stuff. And Roger had produced 1,000 movies and directed a couple of hundred, and their comments were always very, very specific."

"I think one of the privileges of being a filmmaker is the opportunity to remain a kind of perpetual student."

"You're not a historian, but most historians will tell you that they make very discrete judgment as to what facts to omit in order to make their book into some shape, some length that can be managed."

"The public has an appetite for anything about imagination - anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible."

"My ideas are always better. We have an understanding in place."

"And the fact that I see so many films really seems to amaze certain people."

"It's pretty clear to me that working as a director for hire agrees with me. I like it. The films that have come out of that, I personally like better than the ones that didn't."

"There's not really much destruction in New York besides the weather and it's a natural force so it's not like any destruction. But LA gets leveled (laughs). That's my comment to Hollywood."

"To you, I'm an atheist.To God, I'm the loyal opposition."

"I love doing big movies. It's awesome! You have all these toys. The thing I like about this movie is, like they always say, directors have the biggest train sets! Don't tell anyone, but I'd do this for free."

"The Communists automatically violated the daily practices of democracy to which I was accustomed."

"Will Smith is young, he's cool and my kids have his CDs."

"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy."

"If you are prepared to make a fool of yourself for them then you usually get that back. I think that there are points where you become so close to an actor, you know them so well, almost as well or better than their spouse. You have to know them, warts and all."

"Being non-commercial is never an ambition. Movies come together at different points for fortuitous reasons. You do them as you get the opportunity, as opposed to doing them when you choose to or design to."

"The Cuban people have an amazingly strong and unbroken spirit."

"I was really disappointed that Warner Bros. didn't think highly enough of my film or my filmmaking to ask me to make the new Superman."
Film,

"I remember growing up with television, from the time it was just a test pattern, with maybe a little bit of programming once in a while."

"I don't really say much about reviewers. It's a very tough job to get all of the depth of a movie all at once."
Job,

"In The Name of the King is the right title. To be honest, I don't know who had the final idea for the title but I liked it and it has a strong connection to the movie's story."

"A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses."

"Film-makers should remain true to their principles and never compromise, there is a real revival in the British film industry but there is a danger that we will become colonial servants of Hollywood. We need to maintain our own integrity."

"I went through a phase where I thought nostalgia was a bad thing."

"There's still a 1950s view of cinema, that there's one audience and they all want to see the same thing."

"I wanted to make sure that the environment of the shooting itself was not that controlled, and the way to go about that course was to work with as small a crew as possible."

"I always say that I've been in a bad mood for maybe 35 years now. I try to lighten it up, but that's what comes out when you get me on camera."

"Sitting down to a meal with an Indian family is different from sitting down to a meal with a British family."

"I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another."

"We took up the offer with the BBC, and that was Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't have to submit my ideas to the group. I used to turn up on the days we recorded with a can of film under my arm, and in it went."

"I don't remember anything anybody said in any Jack Ford picture. Nothing happens except action."

"I've worked with an awful lot of people. Katy Hepburn, Spencer Tracy."

"I didn't go to classes there, but ended up at the Cinematheque, and there it opened up even wider because there I saw a variety of films from all over the world."
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