People quotes
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"This sounds so bleak when I say it, but we need some delusions to keep us going. And the people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can't."
"My films are misinterpreted all the time. I don't mind that. Everybody's films are misinterpreted. But there's no malice or stupidity in the people that misinterpret them. You know what you do, but someone else sees it, and they want to talk about it or write about it, and so they misinterpret them."
"Some people are funny, and some people are not funny. Many people who are not funny can make a living at it. You don't have to be great to make a living at it. Just like a doctor who doesn't have to be great can still make a living out of it."
"I myself don't like to speak to the actors at all. I like to hire great people and let them do their thing. I don't like to speak to them. I don't like to have lunch with them. I don't like to socialize with them. I don't like to hear their ideas."
"Many people who get a lot of money are willing to work with me for no money. This is true."
"People make films for different reasons. For money. Or, they make them because something in them demands artistic expression. I do it because I enjoy the work."
"The artist can't give you an answer that's satisfying to the dreadful reality of your existence. So the best you can do is maybe entertain people and refresh them for an hour-and-a-half."
"For some reason it gives people pleasure to equate the life of certain movie actors or actresses with their actual lives."
"There's a tacit agreement between myself and the audience that I will entertain them when they buy their ticket, and I've been the one that has screwed that up. Once in while I indulge myself and try something else, and I keep my fingers crossed that it will come out good and there'll be enough people who will enjoy it, but that doesn't often happen."
"Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things."
"A radical is one of whom people say ''He goes too far.'' A conservative, on the other hand, is one who ''doesn't go far enough.'' Then there is the reactionary, ''one who doesn't go at all.'' All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have"
"Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people."
"There's people, like me and Jaden [Smith], who want to utilize social media to elevate the consciousness of those people who feel like all they want from social media is to be famous.Like, you can actually be a voice. You can actually say something that's inspiring and not just make people feel like you need to buy things and be a certain way."
"I'm starting to be a lot more comfortable with allowing people to decide for themselves and almost creating a situation that forces people to decide for themselves whether they like it or don't like it or agree with the character or disagree with the character."
"The value of a story isn't that it just has a narcotic effect. It's that it awakens something in you that makes you want to think, that makes you talk to other people, that stirs something that makes you examine the story that eventually turns into self-examination."
"George Clooney is a wonderful philanthropist. But I've heard regular people say, "Would he just shut up and be hot?""
"People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being."
"People like me who were engaging in brinkmanship with the party economic bosses and the open dissidents who were being arrested were pursuing a common goal in different ways."
"I like to see people reaching back for the roots and for the reason why. Not intellectually, but just for the gut feeling of what it's all about."
"When I started you were more in touch with the people you were playing to. There wasn't the distance or the separation that there is now."
