Steven Spielberg Quotes

The thing that I'm just scared to death of is that someday I'm going to wake up and bore somebody with a film.

I'm not really interested in making money. That's always come as the result of success, but it's not been my goal, and I've had a tough time proving that to people.

I dream for a living.

My mom and dad gave me free reign at expressing myself, up to and including torturing all of my sisters, you know, to the point that I did get in trouble for that. They were my first audience.

If I could get them really terrified, it was kind of like having a hit. It was like, wow, great affirmation, you know, that I had told a story that had somehow succeeded.

I was afraid of small spaces and I was afraid of the tree outside my window, and I had all these phobias. I think many kids have those phobias, but I probably had more than most.

I'd rather direct than produce. Any day. And twice on Sunday.

I never felt comfortable with myself, because I was never part of the majority. I always felt awkward and shy and on the outside of the momentum of my friends' lives.

I've always been very hopeful which I guess isn't strange coming from me. I don't want to call myself an optimist. I want to say that I've always been full of hope. I've never lost that. I have a lot of hope for this country and for the entire world.

I've discovered I've got this preoccupation with ordinary people pursued by large forces.

A lot of the films I've made probably could have worked just as well 50 years ago, and that's just because I have a lot of old-fashion values.

There is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility.

People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don't have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.

When I grow up, I still want to be a director.

I like the smell of film. I just like knowing there's film going through the camera.

I hate that people think it's wrong to say you're inspired by Jaws or by Raiders Of The Lost Ark. You're allowed to be.

There are three movies that I am exceptionally proud of in my life, and I rarely commit to a list of films that I like, that I've made, ... but these are the three films that I was passionately connected to. The first was 'ET,' the second 'Schindler's List,' and third is 'Saving Private Ryan.’

I felt, for the first time in my career, that I was directing a stage production more than a motion picture. Part of directing is psychotherapy. You're sitting there with a lot of very talented patients, and you're hoping your movie doesn't blow up in your face in anarchy.

This is a courageous year for filmmakers. ... They are saying 'If I never make another film, this one says what I think and feel’.

These movies are asking sensitive questions about racial intolerance and Middle East politics. It's been an amazing year, very much like 1968, '69 and '70, when you suddenly see all of these political movies coming out at the same time, out of the watershed of politics. Some of it is due to our own insecurity about the voices representing us in government right now. We feel like our government has set us adrift, and we're trying to make our voices heard. We're telling them to be worried about these things.

I don't think this collection of films represent everything. We're not delivering a shared point of view. These movies are all so different from each other. We all look at a movie through a prism of everything our parents and teachers taught us and what our children are telling us. You can't make a movie expecting everyone will have the same reaction. Ten people seeing 'Munich' will come out with 10 different points of view. It was always that way, sitting around the Passover table talking about the Middle East.

All through my career I've done what I can to discover new talent and give them a start.

This opportunity ... allows all of us to reach out directly to open a much wider door.

Through the visual arts, the performing arts, the art of music, the art of dance, the art of celebration of life, all of us are dedicated to making this Olympic opening and closing ceremonies the most emotional everyone has ever seen.

Our one goal is to give the world a taste of peace, friendship and understanding. Through the visual arts, the art of celebration of life, we are dedicated to making this the most emotional opening ceremony ever.

I'd love to build a company that will continue to make movies well beyond me someday. And I'd like to help start something great, even investing in it myself.

I don't think any movie or any book or any work of art can solve the stalemate in the Middle East today. But it's certainly worth a try.

We don't demonize our targets. They're individuals. They have families. Although what happened in Munich, I condemn.

It would make people more comfortable if I made a film that said all targeted assassination is bad, or good, but the movie doesn't take either of those positions. It refuses to. Many of those pundits on the Left and Right would love the film to land somewhere definite. It puts a real burden on the audience to figure out for themselves how they feel about these issues. There are no easy answers to the most complex story of the last 50 years.

My film refuses to be a pamphlet. My screenwriter, Tony Kushner, and I were hoping to make it a visceral, emotional and intellectual experience, combined in such a way that it will help you get in touch with what you feel are the questions the film poses. The most important thing about peace in the Middle East is that people surrender their absolute certainty about what's going on.

I will never make a movie about any of the events of 9/11.

Our hope is that the archive will be a resource so enduring that 10, or 50, or even 100 years from now, people around the world will learn directly from survivors and witnesses about the atrocities of the Holocaust.

It [science fiction] really is the only genre that lets you use your imagination without limitations.

Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to, and I see another movie I want to make.

I don't drink coffee. I've never had a cup of coffee in my entire life; that's something you probably don't know about me. I've hated the taste since I was a kid.

I always like to think of the audience when I am directing. Because I am the audience.

[When asked about being conflicted whether to make more artistic films, or more commercial films] "All the time, but when you have a story that is very commercial and simple, you have to find the art. You have to take the other elements of the film, and make them as good as possible, and doing that will uplift the film."

Godzilla was the most masterful of all dinosaur movies because it made you believe it was really happening.

I don't work weekends. Weekends are for my kids. And I have dinner at home every night when I'm not physically directing a movie - I get home by six. I put the kids to bed and tell them stories, and take them to school the next morning. I work basically from 9.30 to 5.30, and I'm strict about that.

I think every film I make that puts characters in jeopardy is me purging my own fears, sadly only to re-engage with them shortly after the release of the picture. I'll never make enough films to purge them all.

I'm as guilty as anyone, because I helped to herald the digital era with Jurassic Park. But the danger is that it can be abused to the point where nothing is eye-popping any more. The difference between making Jaws 31 years ago and War of the Worlds is that today, anything I can imagine, I can realize on film. Then, when my mechanical shark was being repaired and I had to shoot something, I had to make the water scary. I relied on the audience's imagination, aided by where I put the camera. Today, it would be a digital shark. It would cost a hell of a lot more, but never break down. As a result, I probably would have used it four times as much, which would have made the film four times less scary. Jaws is scary because of what you don't see, not because of what you do. We need to bring the audience back into partnership with storytelling.

Being a movie-maker means you get to live many, many lifetimes. It's the same reason audiences go to movies, I think. When my daughter Sasha was 5 years old, we would be watching something on TV and she'd point to a character on screen and say, "Daddy, that's me." Ten minutes later a new character would come on screen and she'd say, "No, Daddy. That's me." Throughout the movie she would pick different people to become. I think that's what we all do. We just don't say it as sweetly.

After a scary movie about the world almost ending, we can walk into the sunlight and say, "Wow, everything's still here. I'm OK!" We like to tease ourselves. Human beings have a need to get close to the edge, and when filmmakers or writers can take them to the edge, it feels like a dream where you're falling, but you wake up just before you hit the ground.

What I'm saying is that I believe in showmanship.

Times have changed. It's like when the first 747 landed at Los Angeles international airport: everybody thought flying through the sky was the most greatest marvel they had ever seen - floating through the air, seemingly in slow motion. Today we never even look at 747s. They're a dime a dozen, and it's that way with the blockbuster. If there was one blockbuster every three years, it meant a lot more than when you have a blockbuster every three weeks. It's the job of each of these studios to market these movies as the must-see movie of the year, so they go after blockbuster status by creating a grand illusion. Sometimes they've got a real engine behind that grand illusion, meaning the movie is damned good and the audience will say they got their money's worth. Other times the audience comes on the promise of seeing something they've never ever seen before and it becomes just another sci-fi action yarn, and they feel disappointed.

I've learned that we can do just about anything under the sun with computers. So the question becomes, should we? Or, should we remind ourselves, as filmmakers, to be careful, and remember that there is nothing more important than how a story is told? If storytelling becomes a byproduct of the digital revolution, then the medium itself is corrupted. On the other hand, if digital tools are simply a way to enhance a conventional story, then in that case, they can make telling that story easier. It's easier and more practical to show 20,000 soldiers in the Crimean War using computers, obviously. So, that's fine. But now, we have technology that can replace actors, or an entire performance in an already existing movie. We could cut out Humphrey Bogart and replace him with Vin Diesel, if somebody wanted. Who would want to? Well, there might be people who would. That's why we have to be careful. Movies reflect our cultural heritage from the period in time in which they were made. Therefore, altering them can destroy that historical perspective. That's disrespectful of history, which is a big issue for me. The situation is like walking a tightrope - we have to move forward, but we have to be careful.

I had dinner with the founder of Yahoo! about seven years ago in Japan. I had my son, who is now sixteen, he was much younger then. I took him to a tea house. We had Geishas, they were serving us tea, and I had a little soki and we were talking. And he kept sitting across from me and he kept saying "Yahoo! You have to know what Yahoo!"... and he was going crazy over this thing called Yahoo! And I thought he was actually out of his brain. You know, because he kept talking about Yahoo! and I thought he was trying to say "Yahoo!" And he was, but I had no idea what he was building. And he was so thrilled with what was happening in his world. And this was way beyond my world at that time. And how I look back. I thought: God if I could have been a little bit nicer to that guy, he might have called me up and offered me a chance to invest early.

The people who attack the movie based on 'moral equivalence' are some of the same people who say diplomacy itself is an exercise in moral equivalence, and that war is the only answer. That the only way to fight terrorism is to dehumanize the terrorists by asking no questions about who they are and where they come from. What I believe is, every act of terrorism requires a strong response, but we must also pay attention to the causes. That's why we have brains and the power to think passionately. Understanding does not require approval. Understanding is not the same as inaction. Understanding is a very muscular act. If I'm endorsing understanding and being attacked for that, then I am almost flattered.



Steven Spielberg Quotes

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