Quote collection
137 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"When I sent those scripts, that was the lowest point of my life. We'd just had our second son, and when I went to collect them from hospital, I went to the bank to try and get some money to buy some diapers, the screen showed I've got $26 left."
"We need storytelling. Otherwise life just goes on and on, like the number Pi."
"I see a movie as a way of learning about the world, about myself, and learning about my relationship with people and art."
"Sometimes films ignore other points of view because it's simpler to tell the story that way, but the more genuine and sympathetic you are to different points of view and situations, the more real the story is."
"I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama."
"When I grew up, in Taiwan, the Korean War was seen as a good war, where America protected Asia. It was sort of an extension of World War II. And it was, of course, the peak of the Cold War. People in Taiwan were generally proAmerican. The Korean War made Japan. And then the Vietnam War made Taiwan. There is some truth to that."
"My hometown was one of the major U.S. Air Force bases."
"I think people are universal."
"San Francisco is one of my favourite cities in the world...I would probably rank it at the top or near the top. It's small but photogenic and has layers...You never have problems finding great angles that people have never done."
"Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done."
"Every movie I make. That’s my hideout, the place I don’t quite understand, but feel most at home."
"When there is a strong woman character in a story - that always grabs me"
"I think great romance needs great obstacles and textures."
"Over the years Woodstock got glorified and romanticised and became the event that symbolised Utopia. It's the last page of our collective memory of the age of innocence. Then things turned ugly and would never be the same again."
"So it [3D] is something I'm still learning, it's fresh, so if the budget allows I'll do it again and just see how far it goes because it's the frontier, it's more interesting. It's still expensive, the projection system can be annoying sometimes, it's not really regulated or perfected yet, so it's still expensive. If I do a lower budget I'll just do 2D, but if the budget allows I think I'll try 3D."
"I did a women's movie, and I'm not a woman. I did a gay movie, and I'm not gay. I learned as I went along."
"I feel like all of my characters now take this congested situation, they clash, and from there you purge yourself."
"Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world."
"Fighting for identity is something that is very much in my life."
"You have to know the rules, otherwise you have no tools to communicate to the audience, but to keep it fresh you have to break some. I don't choose genres as the element, but the material itself is the element, then I'll decide what genre I need. That's just how I work."