Steven Spielberg Quotes

As a Jew I am aware of how important the existence of Israel is for the survival of us all. And because I am proud of being Jewish, I am worried by the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the world.

Social media has taken over in America to such an extreme that to get my own kids to look back a week in their history is a miracle, let alone 100 years.

This whole thing about reality television to me is really indicative of America saying we're not satisfied just watching television, we want to star in our own TV shows. We want you to discover us and put us in your own TV show, and we want television to be about us, finally.

I basically went into business for myself. But it never amounted to anything. I learned a lot about editing and dubbing by watching all the professionals do it, but I never got a job out of my imposition.

If the world ran the way a crew runs a set, we'd have a better, more progressive world.

There's a lot of confusion about the political ideologies of both parties [Democrats and Republicans] have switched 180 degrees in 150 years. It just too confusing. Everybody claiming Lincoln as their own. And everybody should claim Lincoln as their own, because he represents all of us, and what he did basically provided the opportunities that all of us are enjoying today.

My filmmaking really began with technology. It began through technology, not through telling stories, because my 8mm movie camera was the way into whatever I decided to do.

People have forgotten how to tell a story.

I don't go through a torturous intellectual process to decide what to direct. I know what I want to direct the second I read something or hear a story. I just know when it grabs me in a certain way I want to direct it. And then I spend the next four to six months trying to talk myself out of it, because directing is really hard! But it's true, I know essentially when and what I want to do next... it's an undeniable feeling I get and it's not the same feeling I get when I wind up producing something.

I had a great time creating the future on 'Minority Report,' and it's a future that is coming true faster than any of us thought it would.

Lincoln's leadership is based on a number of precepts, but my favorite one is that he acted in the name, and for the good, of the people.

You can't intellectually purge yourself of who you are. Whatever that is, it's going to come out in the wash, the film wash. What you are is going to be relevant, if not to yourself, to the movies you make.

In the whole history of movies, there has been nothing like Kubrick's vision. It was a vision of hope and wonder, of grace and of mystery, of humour and contradictions. It was a gift to us, and now it's a legacy.

My dad took me to my first movie. It was 'The Greatest Show on Earth' in 1952, a movie of such scale it was actually a traumatic experience.

The only time I have a good hunch the audience is going to be there is when I make the sequel to 'Jurassic Park' or I make another Indiana Jones movie. I know I've got a good shot at getting an audience on opening night. Everything else that is striking out into new territory is a crap shoot.

The thing that I'm just scared to death of is that someday I'm going to wake up and bore somebody with a film.

The public has an appetite for anything about imagination - anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible.

Movies become living organisms that graduate from a filmmaker's sphere of influence and pretty much look back and tell you how they need to be said goodbye to. A movie often turns around and looks at you and says, "Here is who I am, and that's maybe now how you see me, but that's who I've become." And you've got to be open enough to go with that.

Not every movie, in my opinion, should be in 3D. There are a lot of stories I wouldn't shoot in 3D. But, you know, there are movies that are perfect in 3D.

The Japanese had a very strong belief in Bushido, death before dishonour. They were fighting for their country; they were the aggressors in World War II.

I think that is the secret of great acting. You have to bring your imagination to the party. You've got to have a great imagination.

She wanted to go over and hug his tears away, but she was too frightened.

The costume the actors wear and if they're in stylized makeup and wigs in a live-action movie let's say, in a big costume drama, even though it does give them a sense of great ambience and environment and they kind of feel like they're in a great court, or if they feel like they're in the old west, or if they feel like they're being chased by hobbits or dinosaurs, it all comes down to the actors looking each other in the eye.

All of my movies are about how I wish the world would work. I've made very few movies about how the world worked. I could name them on one and a half hands, about how my movies have been very reflective of how the world was exactly. A lot of my movies are really about the way I wish the world was, and that's what this whole art form is all about. It's an interpretive art form.

I don't play online games. 'Warcraft,' I've played that, but I mainly play action games.

When I was younger, all I cared about was what people thought of me and my films. Now I care less about catering, hand-serving, hand-feeding the audience. I've gotten to the point now in my life where I'm serving myself.

I even get inspired by movies that aren't very good, because there's always something good in movies that are collectively thought of as a failure. There's good in everything, I find.

If Bush, as I believe, has reliable information on the fact that Saddam Hussein is making weapons of mass destruction, I cannot not support the policies of his government.

I did 50 takes on Robert Shaw assembling the Greener Gun on 'Jaws.' The shark wasn't working, so I just kept shooting to make the production report look like we were accomplishing something and to keep cast and crew from going crazy from boredom. It was a strategic indulgence.

I once said that CGI makes you less inventive. At the time I was bemoaning the loss of the practical stunt. If a stunt can be done practically and safely, I'd rather do it old-style.

This is a time when we need to smile more and Hollywood movies are supposed to do that for people in difficult times.

I like that the best about DVD: how small it is.

All of us every single year, we're a different person. I don't think we're the same person all our lives.

When I grow up, I still want to be a director.

I'd rather direct than produce. Any day. And twice on Sunday.

I never felt comfortable with myself, because I was never part of the majority. I always felt awkward and shy and on the outside of the momentum of my friends' lives.

I always like to play with my kids. I always have the time to do that. That's my priority, always has been, so just interacting with my kids, and being with them is great.

'E.T.' began with me trying to write a story about my parents' divorce.

Everybody who works for Amblin Television has to do five jobs.

I was making a lot of 8mm home movies, since I was twelve, making little dramas and comedies with the neighborhood kids.

My father had many, many veterans over to the house, and the older I got the more I appreciated their sacrifice.

I've always wanted to tell a story about Lincoln. I saw a paternal father figure; I saw someone who was completely, stubbornly committed to his ideals, to his vision.

I'll probably never win an Oscar, but I'll sure have a lot of fun! I really believe that movies are the great escape.

I just had a crazy, wild imagination all my life, and science fiction is the greatest outlet for me.

My movies more often are told through pictures, not words. But in this case, the pictures took second position to the incredible words of Abraham Lincoln and his presence [...] I was less interested in an outpouring of imagery than in letting the most human moment of this story evolve before us.

I go out and look for a good story to tell and if I like it enough and I decide to direct it, I become dangerously involved in becoming a part of that story.

I wouldn't have filmed The Color Purple if the book had been a big fat novel. The reason I read it is because it is thin.

Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director's point of view.