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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.

-George Lucas

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The Story Being Told

George Lucas

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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.

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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.

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.

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

It's Hard Work Making Movies. It's Like Being A Doctor: You Work Long Hours, Very Hard Hours, And It's Emotional, Tense Work. If You Don't Really Love It, Then It Ain't Worth It.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Am Simply Trying To Struggle Through Life Trying To Do God's Bidding.

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 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.

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.

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

I Must Admit I Suffered A Bit When I First Came To England. But Then I Realised That There Was Nothing To Be Intimidated By, Everybody Had Two Legs.

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.

We Are All Living In Cages With The Door Wide Open.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So This Is How Liberty Dies. With Thunderous Applause.

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 Simply Have To Put One Foot In Front Of The Other And Keep Going. Put Blinders On And Plow Right Ahead.

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.

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

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.

Emotionally Involving The Audience Is Easy. Anybody Can Do It Blindfolded: Get A Little Kitten And Have Some Guy Wring Its Neck.

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.

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

The First Movies, They Just Put Up A Camera And Had A Train Come Into A Train Station, And Everybody Was Amazed. That Was Sort Of All Technology.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I Thought It [star Wars] Was Too Wacky For The General Public. Right Or Wrong This Is My Movie, This Is My Decision, And This Is My Creative Vision, And If People Don't Like It, They Don't Have To See It.

Han Solo: Wonderful Girl. Either I'm Going To Kill Her Or I'm Beginning To Like Her.

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

Sound And Music

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Wasn't Much As A Kid That Inspired Me In What I Did As An Adult, But I Was Always Very Interested In What Motivates People, And In Telling Stories And Building Things.

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.

After You've Done The First Feature, Then You Have Heck Of A Difficult Time Getting Your Second Film Off The Ground. They Look At Your First Film And They Say, "oh Well, We Don't Want You Anymore."

You Can Be As Rich, And Famous, And Powerful As You Want To Be, And It Will Not Bring You Happiness. That's Said Over And Over And Over, Again. It's Such A Cliché That It Hardly Needs To Be Said, But People Don't Understand That It's Actually True.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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.

Real Love Is On The Inside. It's Somebody You Have A Common Ground With, You Share The Same Values, You Share The Same Interests, You Share The Same Humor, You Share All Those Things That Are Things That Will Last You The Rest Of Your Life.

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.

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.

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

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

I'm Very Proud Of All The Movies I Made. I Am Very Happy With Everything I've Done. I Like To Watch My Movies. Some Of Them Work. Some Of Them Don't. Some Of Them People Like, Most Of Them They Don't.

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.

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.

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

Star Wars Has Always Struck A Chord With People. There Are Issues Of Loyalty, Of Friendship, Of Good And Evil... The Theme Came From Stories And Ideas That Have Been Around For Thousands Of Years.

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.

Teachers Are The Most Important Individuals In Our Society - Nothing Is As Powerful As The Human Touch In Education.

Luke: Boy, It's Lucky You Have These Compartments. Han: I Use Them For Smuggling. I Never Thought I'd Be Smuggling Myself In Them. This Is Ridiculous.

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

I Like Racing. I Love The Speed And I'm A Very Kinetic Person In Terms Of Filmmaking. I Love The Movement Of Film More Than Anything Else.

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

You're Not Going To Stay In Business, The Business Of Making Movies Very Long Because You Need The Resources In Order To Keep Going. So You Have To Try And Find A Niche Audience Or Some Kind Of Audience That Has The Same Likes, Dislikes And Aesthetic Sensibilities That You Have.

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.

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

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."

It's Okay To Lose; Just Don't Lose The Lesson.

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.

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.

As I Talk To Film Students Now Especially, I Say, "the Easiest Job You'll Ever Get Is To Try To Make Your First Film." That's The Easy One To Get, Is The First Film Because Nobody Knows Whether You Can Make A Film Or Not.

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

It's Not A Matter Of How Well Can You Make A Movie. It's How Well Can You Make It Under The Circumstance, Because There's Always Circumstances. You Cannot Use That As An Excuse.

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

Luminous Beings Are We, Not This Crude Matter.

A Movie Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned.

You Have The Most Important Job Of Anyone Today. Our Kids Need You To Advocate For Their Futures.

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

On The Internet, All Those Same Guys That Are Complaining I Made A Change Are Completely Changing The Movie. I’m Saying: ‘fine. But My Movie, With My Name On It, That Says I Did It, Needs To Be The Way I Want It.’

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.

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.

I Live A Reasonably Simple Life, Off The Beaten Track.

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

Time Is More Important To Me Than Money.

I Think Crossing Into The Digital Age Is The Big Move For The Industry. I Think It Will Be The Biggest Thing That's Happened While I've Been Making Movies. I Equate It To The Invention Of Color Or Sound, And I Don't See Any Other Major Technical Process Coming Along And Changing That.

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.

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

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

I Want To Live Where I Want To Live, And I Will Make Films Because I Love To Make Films.

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.

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.

But Having A Really Good Understanding Of History, Literature, Psychology, Sciences - Is Very, Very Important To Actually Being Able To Make Movies.

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

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.

[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?'

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

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.

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

[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.

Being In Washington Is More Fictional Than Being In Hollywood.

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.

Part Of The Reason My Friends And I Became Successful Is That We Were Always Helping Each Other.

One Of The Amazing Things About 'seven Samurai' Is That There Are A Lot Of Characters. And Considering You Have So Many, And They All Have Shaved Heads, And You've Got Good Guys And Bad Guys And Peasants, You Get To Understand A Lot Of Them Without Too Much Being Said.

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

I Put All Of My Resources Into Pushing The Evolution In An Industry That Is Notoriously Backwards And I Enjoy Pushing That Envelope,.

These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For.

Books And Movies

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.

Ultimately The Force Is The Larger Mystery Of The Universe. And To Trust Your Feelings Is Your Way Into That.

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.

Our System Of Education Is Locked In A Time Capsule. You Want To Say To The People In Charge, 'you're Not Using Today's Tools! Wake Up!'

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."

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

Today It Is An Amazing, If Unexpected, Legacy Of Star Wars That So Many Gifted Writers Are Contributing New Stories To The Saga.

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.

May The Force Be With You.

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."

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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

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

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."

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Pursuit Of Happiness

When A Movie Comes Out, I Always Go Off On A Beach So I Miss All The Craziness That Goes On, All The Hoopla, And The Hype And The Success, And How Much It's Making, Or Whether It's Doing Good Or Whether It's Doing Bad. I Just Miss It All. I Don't Talk To Anybody, And A Couple Weeks Later I Come Back And It's All Over With.

As The Workplace Becomes More Specialized, From Offices To Medical Centers To Factories, Teams Of People Must Accomplish Their Work By Collaborating With Each Other. In My Work In Filmmaking, We Need Talented Individuals With Technical Skills, But Their Abilities To Communicate And Work With Others Are Just As Valuable.

I Have A Lot Of Ideas And I Want To Be Able To Work. To Me, It's Like One Of These Contests Where You Get Five Minutes In A Supermarket To Take Anything Off The Shelves You Want And Try To Fill Your Cart Up As Much As You Can. That's The Way I Look At My Work.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Brokeback Mountain

The Object Is To Try To Get The (movie) System To Work For You, Instead Of Against You. And The Only Way You Can Do It Is Through Success, I'm Afraid.

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'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.

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.

Someday You're Going To Have To Learn To Separate What Seems To Be Important From What Really Is Important.

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.

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.

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.'

One Of The Most Telling Things About Film School Is You've Got A Lot Of Students Wandering Around Saying, "oh, I Wish I Could Make A Movie. I Wish I Could Make A Movie."

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.

All The Religions Are True, They Just See A Different Part Of The Elephant.

There Wasn't Anything In My Life That Was Going To Stop Me From Making Movies.

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

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.

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.

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.

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."

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

As A Group, We Are Stronger Than We Are As Individuals. We Start To Think We Want Everything For Ourselves And We Don't Want To Help Anybody Else. We Want To Succeed, But We Don't Want Anybody Else To Succeed, Because We Want To Be The Winner.

Heroes Come In All Sizes, And You Don't Have To Be A Giant Hero. You Can Be A Very Small Hero. It's Just As Important To Understand That Accepting Self-responsibi Lity For The Things You Do, Having Good Manners, Caring About Other People-these Are Heroic Acts. Everybody Has The Choice Of Being A Hero Or Not Being A Hero Every Day Of Their Lives.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

All Democracies Turn Into Dictatorships - But Not By Coup. The People Give Their Democracy To A Dictator, Whether It's Julius Caesar Or Napoleon Or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, The General Population Goes Along With The Idea.

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

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.

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

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.

If You Want To Be Successful In A Particular Field Of Endeavor, I Think Perseverance Is One Of The Key Qualities.

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.

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.

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

It's Very Important Not To Do What Your Peers Think You Should Do, Not Do What Your Parents Think,your Teachers Or Even Your Culture. Do What's Inside Of You.

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.

I Regret Not The Things I Have Done, Only Those I Have Yet To Do.

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.

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

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.

Always Remember, Your Focus Determines Your Reality.

Positive Thinking

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

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.

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.

Working Hard Is Very Important. You're Not Going To Get Anywhere Without Working Extremely Hard.

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