Steven Soderbergh Quotes

I guess I just look at talent as a very subjective thing. I mean, if you never tried playing an oboe, how do you know you're not the most talented oboe player ever? The point is that if you don't love it, then it doesn't matter.

If you're not flying people around on wires, and you're only allowing them to do things that people can really do, it can't go on for very long, because eventually somebody gets the drop on the other person and then it's over.

You can't change who you are, so I think that the only thing you can do is just never talk to people about stuff and then hope that maybe does something.

People are sort of numb to watching violence, but sexual activity is still as strong as it ever was in terms of generating response.

My working life is me doing what I want to do. This is that. I've made movies that people don't go to see.

We all get outraged by things and there are things that make us angry and maybe for a while we get angry enough to actually go do something about it.

I tend to be drawn more to people than pure story ideas.

Everything had been done long before I started making movies. I mean, there's nothing that Godard hasn't already done. You can't do a single thing that Godard hasn't already thought of. And so you struggle to do something that is not predictable.

The brief flashbacks are sun-kissed, summery and optimistic. It's the only place in the movie you will see red, yellow, orange, or any vibrant colors.

I'm probably more character-driven than plot-driven. It's rare for me to attach myself to an idea for a story.

I'm not precious about anything. The effort it took to get something means nothing to me in post. It means nothing to the audience. I'll chop limbs off. I'll put an arm where a leg should be. I'll do anything.

"A meteor hits planet Earth" - that's a story idea but that doesn't give me any indication of what the character is.

A big part of making an album is that you want to have enough material - you want to have enough stuff for people to hear and know that it represents you. So it does sometimes turn into a situation where you're saying to the person you're working with, "Well, what do you want?" But then there are other times when I work with people and they'll turn to me and say, "How do you want to do this?" And that's actually when I work best.

I'm always a little unnerved when I see a show that's set in the past that implies in any way that things were nicer then.