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I Think That God Gave Us A Brain, And That It's The Only Thing We Have To Survive. All Life Forms Have Some Advantage, Some Trick, Some Claw, Some Camouflage, Some Poison, Some Speed, Something To Help Them Survive. We've Got A Brain. Therefore It's Our Duty To Use Our Brain.

-George Lucas

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I Think That God

George Lucas

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I Think That God Gave Us A Brain, And That It's The Only Thing We Have To Survive. All Life Forms Have Some Advantage, Some Trick, Some Claw, Some Camouflage, Some Poison, Some Speed, Something To Help Them Survive. We've Got A Brain. Therefore It's Our Duty To Use Our Brain.

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If I'd Have Gone To Art School, Or Stayed In Anthropology, I Probably Would Have Ended Up Back In Film ... Mostly I Just Followed My Inner Feelings And Passions ... And Kept Going To Where It Got Warmer And Warmer, Until It Finally Got Hot ... Everybody Has Talent. It's Just A Matter Of Moving Around Until You've Discovered What It Is.

You Have To Understand That It's A Very Cooperative World, Not Only With The Environment, With But Our Fellow Human Beings. If You Do Not Cooperate, If You Do Not Work Together To Keep The Entire Organism Going, The Whole Thing Dies, And Everybody Dies With It. That's A Law Of Nature, And It's Existed Forever. We're One Of The Very Few Creatures That Has A Choice, And Can Intellectualize The Process.

When You Are A Beginning Film Maker You Are Desperate To Survive. The Most Important Thing In The End Is Survival And Being Able To Get To Your Next Picture.

I Never Had A Story For The Sequels, For The Last Trilogy. That's Not Really Part Of The Plan At This Point, And I'll Be At The Age Where To Do Another Trilogy Would Take 10 Years. I'd Always Envisioned It As Six Movies. When You See It In Six Parts You'll Understand That It Really Ends At Part Six.

Anybody That Makes Films Knows The Film Is Never Finished. It's Abandoned Or It's Ripped Out Of Your Hands, And It's Thrown Into The Marketplace, Never Finished. It's A Very Rare Experience Where You Find A Filmmaker Who Says, "that's Exactly What I Wanted. I Got Everything I Needed. I Made It Just Perfect. I'm Going To Put It Out There."

[in Ancient Rome,] Why Did The Senate After Killing Caesar Turn Around And Give The Government To His Nephew? Why Did France After They Got Rid Of The King And That Whole System Turn Around And Give It To Napoleon? It's The Same Thing With Germany And Hitler.

Over Time I Began To Realize That The Level Of Cinema Criticism In The Last Part Of Xx Century In The United States Was Pretty Low. The Institution Itself Is Not What It's Supposed To Be, And I Realized That I Didn't Need To Take That Seriously.

If America Is The Pursuit Of Happiness, The Best Way To Pursue Happiness Is To Help Other People.

Pursuit Of Happiness

It Was The Money From 'star Wars' And 'jaws' That Allowed The Theaters To Build Their Multiplexes, Which Allowed An Opening Up Of Screens.

There's Nothing Worse Than The Frustration Of Having Somebody Who You Feel Doesn't Get What You're Doing, Trying To Turn It Into Something Else. It's A Very, Very Annoying And Sort Of Frustrating Thing And I Just Never Wanted To Go Through It. I Was Very Fortunate As I Came Up Through The Film Business That I Was Able To Insulate Myself From That.

There Is No Why. We Are. Life Is Beyond Reason.

I Was Always Extremely Curious About Why People Did The Things They Do.

You Can't Do It Unless You Can Imagine It.

I Wanted To Be A Car Mechanic And I Wanted To Race Cars And The Idea Of Trying To Make Something Out Of My Life Wasn't Really A Priority. But The Accident Allowed Me To Apply Myself At School. I Got Great Grades. Eventually I Got Very Excited About Anthropology And About Social Sciences And Psychology, And I Was Able To Push My Photography Even Further And Eventually Discovered Film And Film Schools.

A Lot Of Great Thinkers- Like Einstein And Newton- Come Up With Their Best Ideas When They're Young Because They Don't Yet Think In The Way That The Establishment Teaches Them. Sometimes Your Lack Of Knowledge Frees Your Mind To Be Creative And Think In A Different Way. But You Still Have To Be Logical And Figure Out A Practical Way To Get Things Done, Even Though You're Looking At Things Differently.

You Have To Have A Thick Enough Skin To Cope With The Criticism. I'm Very Self-critical And I Have A Lot Of Friends That I Trust Who Are Film Directors And Writers And People In My Profession.

One Of The Basic Motifs In Fairy Tales Is That You Find The Poor And Unfortunate Along The Side Of The Road, And When They Beg For Help, If You Give It To Them, You End Up Succeeding. If You Don't Give It To Them, You End Up Being Turned Into A Frog Or Something. It's Something That's Been Around For Thousands Of Years, A Concept That's Been Around For Thousands Of Years.

Train Yourself To Let Go Of The Things You Fear To Lose.

Part Of The Issue Of Achievement Is To Be Able To Set Realistic Goals, But That's One Of The Hardest Things To Do Because You Don't Always Know Exactly Where You're Going, And You Shouldn't.

If You Can Tune Into The Fantasy Life Of An 11-year-old Girl, You Can Make A Fortune In This Business.

I've Always Just Followed My Own Course, Whatever I Found The Most Interesting To Me At The Moment. I've Never Had A Real Plan Of, "i Want To Get From Here To There, And I've Got To Do This."

That's The Issue That I've Been Exploring: How Did The Republic Turn Into The Empire? That's Paralleled With: How Did Anakin Turn Into Darth Vader? How Does A Good Person Go Bad, And How Does A Democracy Become A Dictatorship? It Isn't That The Empire Conquered The Republic, It's That The Empire Is The Republic.

'star Wars' Is Fun, Its Exciting, Its Inspirational, And People Respond To That. It's What They Want.

I'm Extremely Grateful That I Discovered My Passion. I Love Movies. I Love To Watch Them, I Love To Make Them.

I'm Not Much Of A Math And Science Guy. I Spent Most Of My Time In School Daydreaming And Managed To Turn It Into A Living. When I Was Making "star Wars," I Wasn't Restrained By Any Kind Of Science. I Simply Said, "i'm Going To Create A World That's Fun And Interesting, Makes Sense, And Seems To Have A Reality To It."

When People Talk To Me About The Digital Divide, I Think Of It Not So Much About Who Has Access To What Technology As About Who Knows How To Create And Express Themselves In The New Language Of The Screen. If Students Aren't Taught The Language Of Sound And Images, Shouldn't They Be Considered As Illiterate As If They Left College Without Being Able To Read And Write?

Oh, My. I'd Forgotten How Much I Hate Space Travel.

'young Indiana Jones' Was One Of The Happiest Times I Ever Had, So I Love Television.

The Best Way To Truly Understand Narrative Art Is To Experience It.

I Thought Star Wars Was Too Wacky For The General Public.

People Look At Technology As Sometimes An End To Things, And It Isn't An End In Certain Cases. In The Movie Business, The Act Of Creating In The Art Form Of Movies, The Craft Of Movies Is Completely Technical, And That's All It Is.

Time Is More Important To Me Than Money.

I Grew Up In The Era, 'don't Trust Anybody Over 30.' And, You Know, I Still Feel That. Don't Trust Me.

Luminous Beings Are We, Not This Crude Matter.

We Tried To Do Yoda In Cgi In Episode I, But We Just Couldn't Get It Done In Time. We Couldn't Get The Technology To Work, So We Had To Use The Puppet, But The Puppet Really Wasn't As Good As The Cgi. So When We Did The Reissue, We Had To Put The Cgi Back In, Which Was What It Was Meant To Be.

The One Way The World Hasn't Changed: Teaching Is Still The Most Important Job.

In The Future It Will Become Even Easier For Old Negatives To Become Lost And Be ?replaced? By New Altered Negatives. This Would Be A Great Loss To Our Society. Our Cultural History Must Not Be Allowed To Be Rewritten.

Whatever Has Happened In My Quest For Innovation Has Been Part Of My Quest For Immaculate Reality.

For 'star Wars' I Had To Develop A Whole New Idea About Special Effects To Give It The Kind Of Kinetic Energy I Was Looking For. I Did It With Motion-control Photography.

One Thing About 'star Wars' That I'm Really Proud Of Is That It Expands The Imagination. That's Why I Like The 'star Wars' Toys.

I Am Very Concerned About Our National Heritage, And I Am Very Concerned That The Films That I Watched When I Was Young And The Films That I Watched Throughout My Life Are Preserved, So That My Children Can See Them.

When Star Wars Became A Hit And I Had A Chance To Make The Other Movies, I Had To Figure Out A Way To Bring Ben Back, But A Lot Of The Issues He Had To Deal With Were Carried By Yoda. In A Sense, I Combined Yoda With The Spirit Of Ben. I Wanted Ben To Have Some Kind Of Influence, But I Didn't Want It To Be A Direct Influence Where He Could Help Luke. So Ben Has Managed To Keep His Identity After He Became One With The Force. One Of The Things He Was Doing On Tatooine Besides Watching Over Luke Was Learning How To Keep His Identity After He Became Part Of The Force.

From The Outset, I Conceived Star Wars As A Series Of Six Films, Or Two Trilogies.

You Have To Find Something That You Love Enough To Be Able To Take Risks, Jump Over The Hurdles And Break Through The Brick Walls That Are Always Going To Be Placed In Front Of You. If You Don't Have That Kind Of Feeling For What It Is You're Doing, You'll Stop At The First Giant Hurdle.

I'd Be The First Person To Say I Can't Write Dialogue. My Dialogue Is Very Utilitarian And Is Designed To Move Things Forward. I'm Not Shakespeare. It's Not Designed To Be Poetic.

Most Organisms Either Adapt And Become Part Of The System, Or Get Wiped Out. The Only Thing We Have To Adapt To The System With Is Our Brain. If We Don't Use It, And We Don't Adapt Fast Enough, We Won't Survive.

The Secret To The Movie Business, Or Any Business, Is To Get A Good Education In A Subject Besides Film - Whether It's History, Psychology, Economics, Or Architecture - So You Have Something To Make A Movie About. All The Skill In The World Isn't Going To Help You Unless You Have Something To Say.

I Was A Terrible Student In High School And The Thing That The Auto Accident Did - And It Happened Just As I Graduated, So I Was At This Sort Of Crossroads - But It Made Me Apply Myself More, Because I Realized More Than Anything Else What A Thin Thread We Hang On In Life, And I Really Wanted To Make Something Out Of My Life.

Although I Write Screenplays, I Don't Think I'm A Very Good Writer.

Good Luck Has Its Storms.

I Would Like To See Our Society Mature, And Become More Rational And More Knowledge-based, Less Emotion-based.

For The Third Trilogy, I Don't Know If I Will Still Be Alive When It Comes The Time To Make Them.

My Life Is Making Movies. I Like Storytelling, And I've Got A Lot Of Stories That Are Stored Up In My Head That I Hope To Get Out Before My Time Is Up.

I Wanted To Make Abstract Films That Are Emotional, And I Still Do.

My Success Wasn't Based On How I Could Push Down Everybody That Was Around Me. My Success Was Based On How Much I Could Push Everybody Up.

Whenever You're Making A Movie, Especially When You're Writing, You Always Have Self-doubts.

Star Wars Is Really Three Trilogies, Nine Films. The First Trilogy Covers The Fall Of The Republic And The Rise Of The Empire, The Middle Trilogy The Fall Of The Empire, And The Last Trilogy Involves The Rebuilding Of The Republic. It Won't Be Finished For Probably Another 20 Years.

Most Artists, Most Painters, Even Composers Would Want To Come Back And Redo Their Work. They've Got A New Perspective On It, They've Got More Resources, They Have Better Technology, And They Can Fix Or Finish The Things That Were Never Done.

I Wanted To Make A Kids' Film That Would Strengthen Contemporary Mythology.

It Wasn't Long After I Began Writing Star Wars That I Realized The Story Was More Than A Single Film Could Hold. As The Saga Of The Skywalkers And Jedi Knights Unfolded, I Began To See It As A Tale That Could Take At Least Nine Films To Tell - Three Trilogies - And I Realized, In Making My Way Through The Back Story And After Story, That I Was Really Setting Out To Make The Middle Story.

The Underlying Issues, The Psychological Motives, In All My Movies Have Been The Same, He Said. Personal Responsibility And Friendship, The Importance Of A Compassionate Life As Opposed To A Passionate Life.

Making A Film Is Like Putting Out A Fire With Sieve. There Are So Many Elements, And It Gets So Complicated.

You Try To Get Yourself Into A Situation Where You Only Have To Answer To Yourself, Where You Can Ask Advice Of People And Work With Your Peers And Mentors And Things To Try To Do The Best Job That You Can Possibly Do.

Everybody Has Talent And It's Just A Matter Of Moving Around Until You've Discovered What It Is. A Talent Is A Combination Of Something You Love A Great Deal And Something You Can Lose Yourself In - Something That You Can Start At 9 O'clock, Look Up From Your Work And It's 10 O'clock At Night - And Also Something That You Have A Talent, Not A Talent For, But Skills That You Have A Natural Ability To Do Very Well. And Usually Those Two Things Go Together.

In My Experience, There's No Such Thing As Luck.

I Felt That One Of The Major Issues In The Third Film Is That Luke Is Finally On His Own And Has To Fight Vader And The Emperor By Himself. If You Get A Sense That Yoda Or Ben Is There To Help Him Or To Somehow Influence Him, It Diminishes The Power Of The Scene.

I Intend More Of A Kinship With Silent Films Than More Modern Film. I Like The Old Cinema. My Films Are More Of A Hybrid - A Different Style Of Filmmaking To What I Call Talking Head Movies. Some People Don't Get It. Especially The More Academic Types.

A Talent Is A Combination Of Something You Love A Great Deal And Something You Can Lose Yourself In - Something That You Can Start At 9 O'clock, Look Up From Your Work And It's 10 O'clock At Night.

I Like Making Movies. I Like The Process. I Like Trying Out New Ideas, And If They Don't Work, They Don't Work. That's The Reason I Generated The Money In The First Place, To Be Able To Try Things. That's Where I Spend My Money.

In 3-d Filmmaking, I Can Take Images And Manipulate Them Infinitely, As Opposed To Taking Still Photographs And Laying Them One After The Other. I Move Things In All Directions. It's Such A Liberating Experience.

People Who Alter Or Destroy Works Of Art And Our Cultural Heritage For Profit Or As An Exercise Of Power Are Barbarians.

When My Films Don't Work It's Usually Because I Tried Some Very Experimental Idea. I Tried New Ideas And They Just Didn't Work, As Opposed To Trying To Do Something Conventional And Having It Be So Conventional Nobody Wanted To See It.

Don't Avoid The Cliches - They Are Cliches Because They Work!

I Think That's An Obligation You Have, To Give Back No Matter What Happens. It Actually Ends Up Being Easier When You're Young Than When You Become Successful. Suddenly You Realize You've Gone Into A Whole Other Realm Of Philanthropy, From Just Being A Volunteer To Being This Person That Dedicates Buildings And Saves Lots Of Children In Some Faraway Place.

I Thought It Was Too Wacky For The General Public. On His Original Opinion Of His Movie's Chances For Success, 1997.

Sometimes You Must Let Go Of Your Pride And Do What Is Asked Of Us. Anakin Skywalker, Episode 2: Attack Of The Clones

Everyone Seems To Think That Digital Technology Devoids The Medium Of Content, But That Is Not True At All. If Anything, It Broadens The Content.

Even In High School I Was Very Interested In History - Why People Do The Things They Do. As A Kid I Spent A Lot Of Time Trying To Relate The Past To The Present.

The Story Being Told In 'star Wars' Is A Classic One. Every Few Hundred Years, The Story Is Retold Because We Have A Tendency To Do The Same Things Over And Over Again. Power Corrupts, And When You're In Charge, You Start Doing Things That You Think Are Right, But They're Actually Not.

A Film Is Sort Of Binary - It Either Works Or It Doesn't Work. It Has Nothing To Do With How Good A Job You Do. If You Bring It Up To An Adequate Level Where The Audience Goes With The Movie, Then It Works, That Is All.

The Sound And Music Are 50% Of The Entertainment In A Movie.

Sound And Music

I'd Like To See Education Play A Larger Role In Our Daily Lives, Have People Come To A Larger Understanding - A "bigger Picture" Understanding - Of How We Fit Into The World, And How We Fit Into The Universe. Not Necessarily Thinking Of Ourselves, But Thinking Of Others.

If I Make A Movie That Has A Whole Bunch Of Music In It, I Get To Listen To The Music All Day Long, And I Don't Have To Say, 'well, I Gotta Go Back To Work And I Gotta Stop Listening To The Music.' I Get To Listen To Music And Go To Work.

I Don't Ever See Movies By Myself. I Always See Them With Other People Because I Want To Know What Works. I Want To Know Where They Laugh. I Want To Know Where They Don't Laugh. I Want To Know What They Think About It Afterwards Because In The End That's What The Art That I'm Working With Is.

I'm Not In A Contest. I Make Movies. I'm Not A Racehorse.

A Movie Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned.

Because We [people] Have An Intellect, Part Of What We Do Is Try To Understand The "intelligent Design." Everything We Don't Know Is "intelligent Design." Everything We Do Know Is Science.

None Of The Films I've Done Was Designed For A Mass Audience, Except For 'indiana Jones.' Nobody In Their Right Mind Thought 'american Graffiti' Or 'star Wars' Would Work.

So This Is How Liberty Dies. With Thunderous Applause.

I Like To Say That Films Are Never Finished, They're Only Abandoned.

I Think As You Grow Up, You Realize You Have Obligations Just In Your Life - Being A Citizen, Being Part Of Humanity - To Help Other People, To Help Your Country, To Help The World.

All Art Is Dependent On Technology Because It's A Human Endeavour , So Even When You're Using Charcoal On A Wall Or Designed The Proscenium Arch, That's Technology .

I Wanted Yoda To Be The Traditional Kind Of Character You Find In Fairy Tales And Mythology. And That Character Is Usually A Frog Or A Wizened Old Man On The Side Of The Road. The Hero Is Going Down The Road And Meets This Poor And Insignificant Person. The Goal Or Lesson Is For The Hero To Learn To Respect Everybody And To Pay Attention To The Poorest Person Because That's Where The Key To His Success Will Be.

I Have A Supermarket Full Of Ideas And The Challenge Is How Many Ideas Can I Get In My Cart Before I'm Gone. When You're Doing It, You're Not Focused On Success. It's Not A Matter Of Modesty. You're Simply Trying To Get All The Things Done That You Want To Get Done In Your Life.

It's Now Time For Me To Pass Star Wars On To A New Generation Of Filmmakers. I've Always Believed That Star Wars Could Live Beyond Me, And I Thought It Was Important To Set Up The Transition During My Lifetime.

You Need Peers; You Need People Who Are At The Same Level You Are. You Never Know In Life When You're Going To Need Help, And You Never Know Who You're Going To Need It From.

The Script Is What You`ve Dreamed Up - This Is What It Should Be. The Film Is What You End Up With.

These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For.

Books And Movies

I Came From A Very Avant-garde Documentary Kind Of Film Making World. I Like Cinema Verité, Documentaries. I Liked Non-story, Non-character Tone Poems. And That's The Film Making That I Was Interested In.

George Orwell Was Right. There's No Greater Genius As Far As I'm Concerned In Terms Of Understanding Human Nature. I Think That A Lot Of People Just Believe Anything You Tell Them, And No Matter What It Is, They Just Go Along With The Program. They're Perfectly Happy To Take Their Pill Every Day And Do What They're Told, And Work And Buy Things, And Work And Buy Things, And Stay Out Of Any Complex Emotional Situations. And Whatever The Authorities Tell Them To Do, They Do, And Whatever The Authorities Say Is The Truth, They Believe Is The Truth.

To Be Renewed Is Everything. What More Could One Ask For Than To Have One's Youth Back Again?

A Lot Of People Like To Do Certain Things, But They're Not That Good At It. Keep Going Through The Things That You Like To Do, Until You Find Something That You Actually Seem To Be Extremely Good At. It Can Be Anything.

Art Is The Retelling Of Certain Themes In A New Light, Making Them Accessible To The Public Of The Moment.

I Made Lots Of Movies While In School While Everybody Else Was Running Around Saying, "oh, I Wish I Could Make A Movie. I Wish They'd Give Me Some Film."

From Kindergarten To College, Certain Teachers Engaged My Curiosity And Motivated Me To Learn. While I Was Not The Best Student, Their Efforts Left A Lasting Impact.

The Sciences Are The 'how,' And The Humanities Are The 'why' - Why Are We Here, Why Do We Believe In The Things We Believe In. I Don't Think You Can Have The 'how' Without The 'why.'

In My Films, All The Great Things Are Put Together. It's Not Like One Kind Of Ice Cream But Rather A Very Big Sundae.

As You Go Through History, I Didn't Think It Was Going To Get Quite This Close. So It's Just One Of Those Recurring Things. I Hope This Doesn't Come True In Our Country. Maybe The Film Will Waken People To The Situation.

I Think One Of The Reasons That Steven (spielberg) And I Have Been As Successful As We Have Is Because We Like The Movies. We Like To Go To The Movies. We Enjoy Movies And We Want To Make Movies Like The Ones We Enjoy.

My First Six Years In The Business Were Hopeless. There Are A Lot Of Times When You Sit And You Say "why Am I Doing This? I'll Never Make It. It's Just Not Going To Happen. I Should Go Out And Get A Real Job, And Try To Survive."

No Film Ever Ends Up Exactly As You Would Like It To, But With Minor Exceptions, Thx Came Out Pretty Much As I Had Visualized It, Thanks To Some Excellent Assistance -- And A Whole Lot Of Luck.

I Loved Photography And Everybody Said It Was A Crazy Thing To Do Because In Those Days Nobody Made It Into The Film Business. I Mean, Unless You Were Related To Somebody There Was No Way In.

Impressive, Most Impressive. (darth Vadar)

I Think That Lethal Weapon-style Dialogue Is Overused, It's A Necessary Aspect Of High Action Films Where You Have To Have The Smart Retort. You Have To Say "i'll Be Back Baby" And Stuff. It's Not My Style.

Kurosawa Was One Of Film's True Greats. His Ability To Transform A Vision Into A Powerful Work Of Art Is Unparalleled.

Human Nature Means Battling Constantly Between Being Completely Self-absorbed And Trying To Be A Communal Creature. Nature Makes You A Communal Creature. The Ultimate Single-minded, Self-centered Creature Is A Cancer Cell. And Mostly, We're Not Made Up Of Cancer Cells.

If You Want To Be Successful In A Particular Field Or Endeavor, I Think Perseverance Is One Of The Key Qualities. It's Very Important That You Find Something That You Care About, That You Have A Deep Passion For, Because You're Going To Have To Devote A Lot Of Your Life To It.

Rejoice For Those Around You Who Transform Into The Force. Mourn Them, Do Not. Miss Them, Do Not. Attachment Leads To Jealousy. The Shadow Of Greed, That Is. Train Yourself To Let Go Of Everything You Fear To Lose

I'm Aware That Dialogue Isn't My Strength. I Use It As A Device. I Don't Particularly Like Dialogue Which Is Part Of The Problem.

The Secret To Film Is That It's An Illusion.

I Am A Giant Proponent Of Giant Screens. But I Accept The Fact That Most Of My Movies Are Going To Be Seen On Phones.

Before I Became A Film Major, I Was Very Heavily Into Social Science, I Had Done A Lot Of Sociology, Anthropology, And I Was Playing In What I Call Social Psychology, Which Is Sort Of An Offshoot Of Anthropology/sociology - Looking At A Culture As A Living Organism, Why It Does What It Does.

I Have A Strong Feeling About Interesting People In Space Exploration. . . . And The Only Way It's Going To Happen Is To Have Some Kid Fantasize About Getting His Ray Gun, Jumping Into His Spaceship, And Flying Into Outer Space.

Each Time I Do A Trilogy It's Ten Years Out Of My Life. I'll Finish Episode Iii And I'll Be 60. And The Next 20 Years After That I Want To Spend Doing Something Other Than Star Wars. If At 80 I'm Still Lively And Having A Good Time And Think I Can Work For Another 10 Years Between 80 And 90, I Might Consider It. But Don't Count On It. There's Nothing Written, And It's Not Like I'm Completing Something. I'd Have To Start From Scratch. The Idea Of A Third Trilogy Was More Of A Media Thing Than It Was Me.

The Ability To Speak Does Not Make You Intelligent.

Film Is A Very Tight Little Box. If You Don't Fit In That Box, You're Gone. Television, There's More Room To Move Around.

Everybody Has Talent, It's Just A Matter Of Moving Around Until You've Discovered What It Is.

You May Make Something You Don't Think Is Very Important During Your Lifetime And It'll Last For A Thousand Years.

Mos Eisley Spaceport. You Will Never Find A More Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy. We Must Be Cautious.

I Was Going To Go To A Four-year College And Be An Anthropologist Or To An Art School And Be An Illustrator When A Friend Convinced Me To Learn Photography At The University Of Southern California. Little Did I Know It Was A School That Taught You How To Make Movies! It Had Never Occurred To Me That I'd Ever Have Any Interest In Filmmaking.

No! Try Not. Do, Or Do Not. There Is No Try.

Suddenly Everything Came Together In One Place. All My Likes, Everything I Actually Seemed To Have Talent For Was Right There. I Said, "hey, This Is It. I Can Do This Really Well. I Really Love To Do It."

The Technology Keeps Moving Forward, Which Makes It Easier For The Artists To Tell Their Stories And Paint The Pictures They Want.

The First Script Was One Of Six Original Stories I Had Written In The Form Of Two Trilogies. After The Success Of Star Wars, I Added Another Trilogy. So Now There Are Nine Stories. The Original Two Trilogies Were Conceived Of As Six Films Of Which The First Film Was Number Four.

Education Is The Single Most Important Job Of The Human Race.

Attention Should Be Paid To This Question Of Our Soul, And Not Simply To Accounting Procedures. Attention Should Be Paid To The Interest Of Those Who Are Yet Unborn, Who Should Be Able To See This Generation As It Saw Itself, And The Past Generation As It Saw Itself.

This Generation

You Must Let Go Of Your Past And Embrace Your Future And Figure Out What Path You're Going To Go Down

The Ideals And Principles For Which Martin Luther King Jr. Fought Have Never Been Forgotten And Are As Relevant Today As They Were 40 Years Ago.

You Want People To Think. You Want People To Be Emotionally Moved. And There's A Theory Behind That In Terms Of Storytelling. It Has Been Around For Thousands Of Years. And That's Where Something Like Live Theater Or A Live Performance Is Something That Is Very Valuable Because You Get Instant Feedback From Your Audience And You Kind Of Know The Things That Work And The Things That Don't Work.

I Think There Are Going To Be Some Social Changes That Take Place Due To The Internet, And The Availability Of The Tools To More And More People. I Think You Are Going To Find A Lot Of People Re-cutting Movies And Changing Them, Making Them Into Their Own Movies.

There Wasn't Much As A Kid That Inspired Me In What I Did As An Adult.

May The Force Be With You.

Changes Are Not Unusual - I Mean, Most Movies, When They Release Them, They Make Changes. But Somehow, When I Make The Slightest Change, Everybody Thinks It's The End Of The World.

He Took Me From Not Being Able To Write A Word In Terms Of Writing Screenplays To Being The King Of Wooden Dialogue.

That Had Always Been My Purpose: To Get People Back In Touch With What Makes Us So Valuable As A Human Race.

I’m Moving Away From The Business, From The Company, From All This Kind Of Stuff.

I Wanted To Race Cars. I Didn't Like School, And All I Wanted To Do Was Work On Cars. But Right Before I Graduated, I Got Into A Really Bad Car Accident, And I Spent That Summer In The Hospital Thinking About Where I Was Heading. I Decided To Take Education More Seriously And Go To A Community College.

There Are A Few Critics Overseas, And Occasionally A Critic Will Write An Astute Analysis Of The Movie. There Is Value In Reading Critics That Actually Have Something Intelligent To Say, But The Journalistic Community Lives In A World Of Sound Bites And Literary Commerce: Selling Newspapers, Selling Books, And They Do That Simply By Trashing Things. They Don't Criticize Or Analyze Them. They Simply Trash Them For The Sake Of A Headline, Or To Shock People To Get Them To Buy Whatever It Is They're Selling.

The Thing About Science-fiction Fans And "star Wars" Fans Is They're Very Independent-thinking People. They All Think Outside The Box, But They All Have Very Strong Ideas About What Should Happen, And They Think It Should Be Their Way. Which Is Fine, Except I'm Making The Movies, So I Should Have It My Way.

Sound Is 50 Percent Of The Movie Going Experience, And I've Always Believed Audiences Are Moved And Excited By What They Hear In My Movies At Least As Much As By What They See.

If I Had Time And A Hammer, I'd Track Down Every Bootleg Copy And Smash It.

You Can Find People Who Have Discovered The Fact That It's Really Helping People, It's Really Being Compassionate Toward Other Human Beings That Makes You Happy, That Gives You A Spiritual Fulfillment - A Kind Of Fulfillment That Goes Way Beyond Anything You Can Buy.

You Need To Have A Lot Of Close Family Around You, A Lot Of Friends To Keep You Honest. Take Your Time, Take A Year And Just Slow Everything Down A Little Bit. Get Away From The Success Part, Stay With Yourself. Go Off On A Beach Somewhere Or Do Something To Keep Yourself Aligned Right.

Lots Of Friends

We Seemed To Be Drifting As A Society - Losing Touch With The Basic Concepts Of Right And Wrong.

Film Is Not An Easy Occupation. There's A Lot Of Occupations That Are Difficult And Film Is One Of Them.

In The End, The Most Important Thing To Me Is That I've Raised Three Kids. I Know That'll Be The Most Important Accomplishment Of My Life And It Is The Most Easily Obtainable, Because All You Have To Do Is Pay Attention. It Is Hard Work And Most People Don't Realize That's The Real Gift They Are Getting In Terms Of Goals And Success And Accomplishments.

I've Had Much More Down In My Life Than I've Had Up. And Much More Struggle. First Of All, When I Went Into The Film School Everybody Said, "what Are You Doing? This Is A Complete Dead-end For A Career."

It Took Me Three, Four Years, To Get From My First Film To My Second Film, Banging On Doors, Trying To Get People To Give Me A Chance. Writing, Struggling, With No Money In The Bank, Working As An Editor On The Side. Working As A Cameraman On The Side. Getting Little Jobs, Eking Out A Living. Trying To Stay Alive, And Pushing A Script That Nobody Wanted.

If The Boy And Girl Walk Off Into The Sunset Hand-in-hand In The Last Scene, It Adds 10 Million To The Box Office.

The Force Is Really A Way Of Feeling; It's A Way Of Being With Life. It Really Has Nothing To Do With Weapons. The Force Gives You The Power To Have Extrasensory Perception And To Be Able To See Things And Hear Things, Read Minds And Levitate Things. It Is Said That Certain Creatures Are Born With A Higher Awareness Of The Force Than Humans. Their Brains Are Different; They Have More Midi-chlorians In Their Cells.

I Am More Of A Visual Person Than A Verbal Person. For Me, I Think, The Excitement Is The Fact That I Found A Way Of Telling The Story As I Want To Tell It, In A Medium That I Could Master.

The Theme That Runs Through My Movies Is The Fact That We Create Barriers For Ourselves....because We Say, Well, I Can't Do That. But In The End, You Can't Do It Unless You Can Imagine Yourself Succeeding At It.

Digital Technology Allows Us A Much Larger Scope To Tell Stories That Were Pretty Much The Grounds Of The Literary Media.

Young People Don't Have A Fantasy Life Anymore, Not The Way We Did. All They've Got Is Kojak And Dirty Harry. There's All These Kids Running Around Wanting To Be Killer Cops.

Success Is A Very Difficult Thing. It's Much More Difficult Than One Might Think.

I Haven't Met Anybody Who Hasn't Been Able To Describe Years And Years And Years Of Very, Very Difficult Struggle Through The Whole Process Of Achieving Anything Whatsoever. And There's No Way To Sort Of Get Around That.

You Have To Find Something That You Love Enough To Be Able To Take Risks.

The Secret Is Not To Give Up Hope. It's Very Hard Not To Because If You're Really Doing Something Worthwhile I Think You Will Be Pushed To The Brink Of Hopelessness Before You Come Through The Other Side.

All Of My Films Have Been Very Hard To Understand At The Script Stage Because They're Very Different. At The Time I Did Them They Were Not Conventional. The Executives Could Only Think In Terms Of What They'd Already Seen. It's Hard For Them To Think In Terms Of What Has Never Been Done Before.

There Are A Lot Of Movies That Are Badly Made That I Love, And There Are A Lot Of Movies That Are Just Beautifully Made But I Don't Like Them. And Critics Have A Tendency - That's All They Focus On, Which Is, "i Like It. I Don't Like It. It's Good. It's Bad."

Follow Your Bliss. Do The Thing Where You Sit Down At 8 A.m. And Then You Realize You're Hungry And You Look Up And It's 10 P.m. If You Can Find Something You Love That Much, It Doesn't Matter What You Do.

Once You Start Down The Dark Path, Forever Will It Dominate Your Destiny, Consume You It Will.

Always Remember, Your Focus Determines Your Reality.

Positive Thinking

We Were Always Dreaming Of How It Was Going To Be.

Fear Is The Path To The Dark Side. Fear Leads To Anger. Anger Leads To Hate. Hate Leads To Suffering.

I've Discovered That Most Critics Themselves Are Cinematically Illiterate. They Don't Really Know Much About Movies. They Don't Know The History. They Don't Know The Technology. They Don't Know Anything. So For Them To Try To Analyze It, They're Lost.

You Really Have To Focus On What You're Doing And Just Plow Ahead No Matter What Hurdles Are Thrown In Front Of You.

I'm The One Who Has To Have Everybody Throw Rocks At Me All The Time, So At Least If They're Going To Throw Rocks At Me, They're Going To Throw Rocks At Me For Something I Love Rather Than Something I Think Is Not Very Good, Or At Least Something I Think Is Not Finished.

'american Graffiti' Was Unpleasant Because Of The Fact That There Was No Money, No Time, And I Was Compromising Myself To Death.

I Am Dedicating The Majority Of My Wealth To Improving Education. It Is The Key To The Survival Of The Human Race. We Have To Plan For Our Collective Future - And The First Step Begins With The Social, Emotional, And Intellectual Tools We Provide To Our Children. As Humans, Our Greatest Tool For Survival Is Our Ability To Think And To Adapt - As Educators, Storytellers, And Communicators Our Responsibility Is To Continue To Do So.

The Older You Get, The Less Seriously You Take Criticism. I've Gotten To A Point Now Where I Ignore It Completely. It's Just Not Relevant To Me Anymore.

Obviously, People Have A Lot Of Different Dreams Of Where America Should Be, And Where It Should Fit Into Things. Obviously, Very Few Of Them Are Compatible, And Very Few Of Them Are Very Compatible With The Laws Of Nature.

Success Is When You Try To Achieve Your Inward Vision Externally And Have It Come Off The Way You See It. Then You Feel Successful About It; That's How Success Is Measured.

I'm Here, And Every Day Now Is An Extra Day. I've Been Given An Extra Day So I've Got To Make The Most Of It.

Although I Write Screenplays, I Don't Think I'm A Very Good Writer. I'm Very Interested In Studying Cultures And Social Issues, But As An Academic I Don't Think I Would Have Been Too Successful.

I'm Lucky Enough That There Is Never A Blank Canvas In Front Of Me... I Have Hundreds Of Projects That I Want To Do But I Am Running Out Of Time.

They Were At The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Naturally They Became Heroes

Brokeback Mountain

If This Were A Fantasy World, There Would Be Ten Of Me And We Would Each Be Doing What We Wanted To Do.

On The Professional Side, I've Helped Move Cinema From A Chemical-based Medium To A Digital-based Medium. That'll Be One Of The Landmarks. And I've Left These Stories, These Little Tales That Have Been Imprinted On The Media, Which Will Or Will Not Be Of Interest To People In The Future. I've Done The Best I Can.

Storytelling Is About Two Things; It's About Character And Plot.

I Think That God Gave Us A Brain, And That It's The Only Thing We Have To Survive. All Life Forms Have Some Advantage, Some Trick, Some Claw, Some Camouflage, Some Poison, Some Speed, Something To Help Them Survive. We've Got A Brain. Therefore It's Our Duty To Use Our Brain.

Football Games Are On Tv, And It Doesn't Affect Stadium Attendance At All. It's The Same With Movies. People Who Really Love Movies And Like To Go Out On A Saturday Night Will Go To The Movie Theater.

You Don't See The Struggle Part Of A Person's Life. You Only See The Success They Have.

I Wanted To Transfer To An Art School, And Ended Up Going To The University Of Southern California. They Had A Cinematography School, And I Said "well, That's Sort Of Like Photography, Maybe That Will Be Interesting." And Once I Started In That Department, I Found What It Was That I Loved And Was Good At.

I Was Never Interested In Being Powerful Or Famous. But Once I Got To Film School And Learned About Movies, I Just Fell In Love With It. I Didn't Care What Kind Of Movies I Made.

Any Society Begins By Realizing That Together, By Helping Each Other, You Can Survive Better Than If You Fight Each Other And Compete With Each Other.

I Grew Up In San Francisco. And So I'm Informed In A Certain Kind Of Way About, You Know, Believing In Democracy And Believing In America. And I'm A Very Ardent Patriot.

Sometimes People Are Surprised To Learn That Most Of The Films I've Made Don't Work. They've Been Released But Nobody Has Ever Seen Them. Maybe 40 Percent Of Them Are Very Successful. That's A Very High Percentage; Most People Have Maybe 10 Or 15 Percent Of Their Films Work.

[star Wars Is] Designed Primarily To Make Young People Think About The Mystery. Not To Say, 'here's The Answer.' It's To Say, 'think About This For A Second. Is There A God? What Does God Look Like? What Does God Sound Like? What Does God Feel Like? How Do We Relate To God?'

Learning To Make Films Is Very Easy. Learning What To Make Films About Is Very Hard.

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