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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.

-George Lucas

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You Can Be As

George Lucas

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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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

After A Lot Of Struggling And Sort Of Reflection I Realized That The Time You Have To Give Is Now, Regardless Of How Old You Are.

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'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."

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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."

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."

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

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

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

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.

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."

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.

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."

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 .

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

Sound And Music

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.'

Luminous Beings Are We, Not This Crude Matter.

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.

These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For.

Books And Movies

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 Movie Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned.

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

[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?'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

Time Is More Important To Me Than Money.

So This Is How Liberty Dies. With Thunderous Applause.

A Special Effect Is A Tool, A Means Of Telling A Story. A Special Effect Without A Story Is A Pretty Boring Thing.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Impressive, Most Impressive. (darth Vadar)

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

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.

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.

I Like Star Wars, It's Fun And I Enjoy Doing It. But It's Definitely Not My Life. I'm A Bigger Movie Fan Than I Am Star Wars Fan. I Like Making Movies.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When You Get A Small Group Of Fans Who Hate Something, It Becomes Compounded By The Internet. The Press Picks Up The Internet Like It's A Source. They Don't Realise It Is Just One Person Typing Out Their Opinion.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Influence Of 'hidden Fortress' Comes Up A Lot Because It Was Printed In A Book Once. The Truth Is, The Only Thing I Was Inspired By Was The Fact That It's Told From The Point Of View Of Two Peasants, Who Get Mixed Up With A Samurai And Princess And A Lot Of Very High-level People.

Star Wars Is A Saga Of Good Vs. Evil, Divided Into Nine Parts.

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

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

Pursuit Of Happiness

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

May The Force Be With You.

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

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.

One Of The Things That Will Never Get Explained In The Films Is How Ben Was Able To Retain His Identity, Because It Happened Somewhere Between The Third And Fourth Movies. I Set Up That This Is A Discipline That He Learned From Yoda; Yoda Told Him How To Do That.

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 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.

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.

Good Luck Has Its Storms.

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

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."

[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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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."

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Brokeback Mountain

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.

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.

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

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!'

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

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.

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

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.

Learning To Make Films Is Very Easy. Learning What To Make Films About Is Very Hard. What You’ve Really Got To Do Is Focus On Learning As Much About Life, And About Various Aspects Of It First.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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