Film-making often lives at the crossroads of honesty and survival, where art must negotiate with reality. As John Ford once said: “To be quite blunt, I make pictures for money, to pay the rent. There are some great artists in the business. I am not one of them.”

Hollywood is high school with money. ~ Martin Mull

I look for a thematic idea running through my movies and I see that it’s the outsider struggling for recognition. I realize that all my life I’ve been an outsider. ~ Martin Scorsese

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

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

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

If you are directing, you have the opportunity to say, “This is what I believe.” ~ Richard Attenborough

Actors die so loud. ~ Henry Miller

We learn how to kiss, or drink, or talk to our buddies — the things that can’t really be taught — we all learn them at the movies. ~ Jack Nicholson

The main thing is, you just want to have your place in history. ~ Clint Eastwood

To make a motion picture, I have people moving through a world and I manipulate the space to modify how you feel. 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. ~ Peter Guber

Critics don’t want to see directors they like make too much of a left turn. ~ Quentin Tarantino

Acting is more fun than writing. Writing is harder, more like a term paper. ~ Owen Wilson

Filmgoers are starved for new ideas, voices, and visions. ~ Robert Redford

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. ~ Orson Welles