George Cukor Quotations

When one deals with stars, he is dealing with intelligent people. If they weren't intelligent, they wouldn't have arrived at the star pinnacle.

Looking for love is tricky business, like whipping a carousel horse.

If there is such a thing as 'a Cukor style,' I guess it arises out of two principal factors: my own personalized perception of the world and my ability to deal professionally with actors. As far as perception is concerned, I always try to imagine settings through the best possible eyes.

You can't have any successes unless you can accept failure.

People who aren't complicated in real life come through as pretty bland on the screen. Most great performers are not very happy and well adjusted. Perhaps that's the price they pay for being originals.

Anyone who looked at something special, in a very original way, makes you see it that way forever.

It is reassuring for people to feel they have a boss, someone who knows the answers and has charted the course.

Give me a good script, and I'll be a hundred times better as a director.

I work through the actors, and the more successful I am, the less my work is apparent.

If she was a victim of any kind, she was a victim of her friends.

The truth is, a director wins an Oscar for a writer's script and actors' performances.

We've all been tired and thought we wanted a long vacation when all we needed was a few days off, but didn't know it.

You can always land on your feet if you know where the ground is.

I suppose they call me a woman's director because there were all these movie queens in the old days, and I directed most of them. But I also directed Jack Barrymore and Ronald Colman and James Stewart, to name a few.

Women's director! Well, I'm very pleased to be considered a master of anything, but remember, for every Jill there was a Jack. People like to pigeonhole you - it's a shortcut, I guess, but once they do, you're stuck with it.

As a professional, it pains me to watch a movie that is botched and amateurish. I prefer directors who have control of both their craft and their ideas.

From the director's point of view, it's infinitely easier to do violence than to do a good dramatic scene.

I don't think you can teach people how to be funny. You can make suggestions about how to speak a line or get a laugh, but it has to be in them.

If I were very handsome, maybe I'd have been an actor.

It never occurred to me that I could live in California. Now I can't imagine living anywhere else.

Unless the story line carries the scenes, the scenes don't really mean anything.

You're just poor cornball provincial people, you critics; you just don't know what the hell you're talking about.

I choose my actors well and get to know the quirks of their personalities - and, most of all, I share humor with them. Then I keep my eyes open when they rehearse and perform, because you never know where the next stimulation comes from.

So many directors say nothing beautifully, and so many others say great and profound things but have no idea how to read a light meter or arrange a shot.

When it goes wrong, you feel like cutting your throat, but you go on. You don't let anything get you down so much that it beats you or stops you.

But I also directed Jack Barrymore and Ronald Colman and James Stewart, to name a few.

Real talent is a mystery, and people who've got it, know it.

Don't let a kick in the ass stop you. It's how you cope that says what you are.

You learn out of bitter experience, trial and error. Life teaches you that. As sincere as you all are, you can't learn it all in school.

I suppose they call me a womans director because there were all these movie queens in the old days, and I directed most of them. But I also directed Jack Barrymore and Ronald Colman and James Stewart, to name a few.

I know people who say Hollywood broke her heart, and all that, but I dont believe it. She was very observant and tough minded and appealing, but she adored and trusted the wrong people. She was very courageous-you know the book Twelve Against the Gods? Marilyn was like that, she had to challenge the gods at every turn.