Film-making can hold hard truths and still make room for wit, surprise, and release. As Quentin Tarantino puts it: “You name any horrific thing, and I can make a joke out of it.”

My occupation is assistant storyteller. It is not “icon.” ~ Harrison Ford

The only really good thing about acting in movies is that there’s no heavy lifting. ~ Cary Grant

The cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake. ~ Alfred Hitchcock

Above all, a director has to be a good captain. ~ Charlton Heston

The emotion is the music and the script is the libretto. ~ Gregory Peck

The camera is more than a recorder, it’s a microscope. It penetrates, it goes into people and you see their most private and concealed thoughts. ~ Elia Kazan

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. ~ Steven Spielberg

Actors die so loud. ~ Henry Miller

We learn how to kiss, or to drink, talk to our buddies—all the things that you can’t really teach in social studies or history—we all learn them at the movies. ~ Jack Nicholson, L.A. Times, 2003

The main thing is, you just want to have your place in history. You hope that people will look back on it in 15, 20, 30 and beyond years, and say, “That was an exciting film.” ~ Clint Eastwood

To make a motion picture, I have people moving through a world and I manipulate the space they’re moving through to modify how you feel about them and feel about the space. I’m a maker of scenes. ~ Michael Mann

When the public doesn’t want me any longer, I’ll quit. ~ Clark Gable

It’s impossible to satisfy everyone, and I suggest we all stop trying. ~ Jennifer Aniston

I’d love to just think of myself as a filmmaker, and I wait for the day when the modifier can be a moot point. ~ Kathryn Bigelow

Miss the audience’s heart as a filmmaker, and the only wallet that gets hit will be your own. That’s because the heart is always the first target in story telling. ~ Peter Guber