Steven Spielberg Quotations | Page 3

Watching violence in movies or in TV programs stimulates the spectators to imitate what they see much more than if seen live or on TV news. In movies, violence is filmed with perfect illumination, spectacular scenery, and in slow motion, making it even romantic. However, in the news, the public has a much better perception of how horrible violence can be, and it is used with objectives that do not exist in the movies.

I'm as guilty as anyone, because I helped to herald the digital era with _Jurassic Park (1993). But the danger is that it can be abused to the point where nothing is eye-popping any more. The difference between making Jaws (1975) 31 years ago and War of .

All good ideas start out as bad ideas, that's why it takes so long.

I didn't read reviews earlier in my career, but I read them now as I'm older. I read them all.

For the most part, everybody who fights in war fights to survive.

I'm not really interested in making money.

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.

'E.T.' began with me trying to write a story about my parents' divorce.

The Internet has been this miraculous conduit to the undeniable truth to the Holocaust.

Bloated budgets are ruining Hollywood - these pictures are squeezing all the other types of movies out of Hollywood. It's disastrous.

I've always been interested in UFOs.

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'.

A lot of kids only know 'E.T.' from the digitally-enhanced version.

I don't really have a schedule of when I want to show my children my movies.

I don't play online games. 'Warcraft,' I've played that, but I mainly play action games.

Because of how much movies cost, it's dangerous to be experimental on one film after the other. But we can experiment with television. We can do things that are fringe and bring ideas to the table that are offbeat and original.

Whether in success or in failure, I'm proud of every single movie I've ever directed.

When war comes, two things happen - profits go way, way up and all perishables go way, way down. There becomes a market for them.

When my children were born, I made the choice I wanted them to be raised as Jews and to have a Jewish education.

In the re-creation of combat situations, and this is coming from a director who's never been in one, being mindful of what these veterans have actually gone through, you find that the biggest concern is that you don't look at war as a geopolitical endeavor.

I think one of the worst things that happened to me was, you know, my voluntary fallout with my father. And then the greatest thing that happened to me was when I saw the light, and realized I needed to love him in a way that he could love me back.

All presidents swear an oath to the Constitution to keep this country united, and when the country fell apart, Lincoln had to put it back together again, with a lot of help. But he bore total responsibility.

I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven't ever directed a film where I haven't made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time.

I would love to do a musical. I would love that. I would have to find the right book, the right story, but some day I'm going to make one. I would really like to go off and direct a musical. That's what I would really like to do when I grow up.

I'm very used to working with first time actors - you can just look back at 'E.T.' with Drew Barrymore, and Christian Bale from 'Empire of the Sun,' who'd never made a movie before.

In '83, not only was there no such thing as performance motion capture technology, there was no such thing as digital animation. This was the analog era.

It is not my job to compare my movies. I don't like to compare my films with other movies because I don't really have that perspective. It is an intellectual exercise, but it doesn't intuitively come to me.

I turned down 'Harry Potter' and 'Spider-Man,' two movies that I knew would be phenomenally successful, because I had already made movies like that before and they offered no challenge to me. I don't need my ego to be reminded.

I interviewed survivors, I went to Poland, saw the cities and spent time with the people and spoke to the Jews who had come back to Poland after the war and talked about why they had come back.

I think every movie I've made after 'Indiana Jones,' I've tried to make every single movie as if it was made by a different director, because I'm very conscious of not wanting to impose a consistent style on subject matter that is not necessarily suited to that style. So I try to re-invent my own eye every time I tackle a new subject.

Lincoln believed in the American people.

I'm not a great man to my children. I'm just 'Pop.' The more involved I am with my kids, it keeps my head flat on top.

I was making a lot of 8mm home movies, since I was twelve, making little dramas and comedies with the neighborhood kids.

I want to be the Cecil B. DeMille of science fiction.

I simply adore 'The Simpsons.' I go to bed in a 'Simpsons' T-shirt.

I made 'Empire of the Sun' in Shanghai in the 1980s and want to come back one day to make a movie in China.

Most of my presumptions about a production are usually wrong.

When I don't have a movie, I don't take a job just for the sake of working. I just sit it out until I find something I'm passionate about.

There were so many odd, strange things about Abraham Lincoln that I think nobody knew how to pigeonhole him.

The only thing that gets me back to directing is good scripts.

One of my daughters is a competitive jumper, we live with horses, we have stables on our property. But I don't ride. I observe, and I worry.

My first reaction every time I delve into an episode of history that I don't know very much about is... my first reaction is anger that my teachers never taught me about it.

In the whole history of movies, there has been nothing like Kubrick's vision. It was a vision of hope and wonder, of grace and of mystery, of humour and contradictions. It was a gift to us, and now it's a legacy.

There is no such thing as science fiction, there is only science eventuality.

Failure is inevitable. Success is elusive.

I love Rambo but I think it's potentially a very dangerous movie. It changes history in a frightening way.

Oh, torture. Torture. My pubic hairs went gray.

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

I have always admired him (Bergman), and I wish I could be an equally good filmmaker as he is, but it will never happen. His love for the cinema almost gives me a guilty conscience

I can't describe it, what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking. This means something. This is important.

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 did not make this film about Frank Abagnale because of what he did . . but because of what he has done with his life the past 30 years.

My dad took me to my first movie.

I feel like Ive been engaged to the British Empire since 1980 and tonight you have given me the ring knighthood.

I basically took something that was extremely erotic and very intentional, and I reduced it to a simple kiss. I got a lot of criticism for that.

Humans are the only hunters who kill when not hungry.

The work that I'm proudest of is the work that I'm most afraid of.

I had no choice. It was just something that happened. I was always looking for ways to act out, and I got a camera and it acted out for me.

It starts with the writer-it's a familiar dictum, but somehow it keeps getting forgotten along the way. No film-maker, irrespective of his electronic bag of tricks, can ever afford to forget his commitment to the written word.

I had to get over my fear of running through the world naked and learn to say 'take me or leave me.'

There's no other way to learn about it, except through documentaries. I encourage documentarians to continue telling stories about World War II. I think documentaries are the greatest way to educate an entire generation that doesn't often look back to learn anything about the history that provided a safe haven for so many of us today. Documentaries are the first line of education, and the second line of education is dramatization, such as The Pacific.

All I have to do is pose for a picture and I'm getting married to the person standing next to me.

I think that the Internet is going to effect the most profound change on the entertainment industries combined. And we're all gonna be tuning into the most popular Internet show in the world, which will be coming from some place in Des Moines. We're all gonna lose our jobs. We're all gonna be on the Internet trying to find an audience.

The older I get, the more I look at movies as a moving miracle.

The person I enjoy working for more than anyone else is George Lucas. He's the best boss I ever had because he's the most talented boss I ever had.

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.

Twenty years from now, there will still be a square screen, maybe even larger, and people will be sitting in a large, dark space, and they won't know each other unless they bring friends along.

I feel I'm all over my movies. I know my movies are all over me.

Everybody who works for Amblin Television has to do five jobs.

Television has a different biorhythm than movies. I love the biorhythm of TV.

I wouldn't have filmed The Color Purple if the book had been a big fat novel. The reason I read it is because it is thin.

Once scouting fully opens its doors to all who desire the same experience that so fully enriched me as a young person, I will be happy to reconsider a role on the advisory board.

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

I'll probably never win an Oscar, but I'll sure have a lot of fun! I really believe that movies are the great escape.

I have made almost as many films in England as I have in America. I will come back to England again and again.

Unprotected sex just feels better in a Waffle House bathroom.

There's going to be no more digital enhancements or digital additions to anything based on any film I direct. I'm not going to do any corrections digitally to even wires that show... If 1941 comes on Blu-ray I'm not going to go back and take the wires out because the Blu-ray will bring the wires out that are guiding the airplane down Hollywood Blvd. At this point right now I think letting movies exist in the era, with all the flaws and all of the flourishes, is a wonderful way to mark time and mark history.

[The way Stanley Kubrick] tells a story is antithetical to the way we are accustomed to receiving stories.

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.

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

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.

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.

I'm 62 years old. Am I old enough to win a lifetime achievement award? Yes, I am. Thank you very much.

She wanted to go over and hug his tears away, but she was too frightened.

Audrey gave more than she ever got. The whole world is going to miss her.

There's no better way to test a person than to put them in the middle of a war. That's clearly going to show what kind of a character you're telling a story about.

You're not alone, are you? Because I'm here

Wherever you are, I will find you and I will bring you home

He never gave up. And he does that for us

I'm not really interested in making money. That's always come as the result of success, but it's not been my goal.

The love we do not show here on Earth is the only thing that hurts us in the after-life.

The only movie that I would ever even consider retrofitting is the first 'Jurassic Park,' which I think would look pretty spectacular in 3D. That's the only one of my films that I would consider doing in 3D.

The most expensive habit in the world is celluloid, not heroin, and I need a fix every few years.

I dont work weekends. Weekends are for my kids. And I have dinner at home every night when Im 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 Im strict about that.

The best time of my life has been the three instances where I have been there for the birth of my children. That is, nothing [else] has ever come close.

The Japanese had a very strong belief in Bushido, death before dishonour. They were fighting for their country; they were the aggressors in World War II.

From a very young age, my parents taught me the most important lesson of my whole life: They taught me how to listen. They taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge - and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.

The greatest films ever made in our history were cut on film, and I'm tenaciously hanging on to the process. I just love going into an editing room and smelling the photochemistry and seeing my editor wearing mini-strands of film around his neck.

I see some parallels between then [Lincoln's era] and now. Certainly the division of ideologies between two parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. In 1865, the Democrats were the Conservatives and the Republicans were the progressives, and today it's just the opposite.

I always like to play with my kids. I always have the time to do that. That's my priority, always has been, so just interacting with my kids, and being with them is great.