Steven Spielberg Quotes

I feel like Ive been engaged to the British Empire since 1980 and tonight you have given me the ring knighthood.

One of the gratuities about being a director is that you can volunteer yourself out of difficult details.

I get very, very anxious on the set. I have a thousand ideas and I don't censor myself. I wind up cutting some of them out in the editing room... I shoot [needless footage] and then don't use later on in the process.

There's going to be no more digital enhancements or digital additions to anything based on any film I direct. I'm not going to do any corrections digitally to even wires that show... If 1941 comes on Blu-ray I'm not going to go back and take the wires out because the Blu-ray will bring the wires out that are guiding the airplane down Hollywood Blvd. At this point right now I think letting movies exist in the era, with all the flaws and all of the flourishes, is a wonderful way to mark time and mark history.

History opens up new worlds to film-makers all the time.

I'm not a great man to my children. I'm just 'Pop.' The more involved I am with my kids, it keeps my head flat on top.

When war comes, two things happen - profits go way, way up and all perishables go way, way down. There becomes a market for them.

I think documentaries are the greatest way to educate an entire generation that doesn't often look back to learn anything about the history that provided a safe haven for so many of us today.

I had no choice. It was just something that happened. I was always looking for ways to act out, and I got a camera and it acted out for me.

Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about.

I've been told that I'm a very different person on the set than I am in postproduction when the movie's over and I'm editing, in that I get so wound up in the film that I become selfless to the point where I lose too much weight.

I'm not in a race with anybody to make the biggest hit movie anymore. I am just trying to tell stories that I can stay interested in for the two years it takes me to supervise the writing and to direct them.

You know, I don't really do that much looking inside me when I'm working on a project. Whatever I am becomes what that film is. But I change; you change.

Like, I took no poetic license with 'Schindler's List' because that was historical, factual documents.

Cell phones tend to bring us more inside of our lives whereas movies offer a chance to escape, so there are two competing forces.

There is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility.

You look at war as something that is putting your best friend in jeopardy. You are responsible for the person in front of you and the person behind you, and the person to the left of you and the person to the right of you.

My dad's been responsible for a lot of my issues.

It is important to know who your friends are and to stay, remain loyal to your friends, despite what you hear, despite the mistakes that are made in friendships and misunderstandings that commonly occur, to be able to forgive and to move on, you have to be able to remember the values of friendship.

The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.

Making a movie is like a stagecoach ride through the Old West: at first you wish for a pleasant trip, and after a while you just hope you reach your destination.

The animal has no intellectual capacity to justify or to find reasons to exist. An animal just exists because it's the natural thing to do.

All those horrible, traumatic years I spent as a kid became what I draw from creatively today.

You're not alone, are you? Because I'm here

I basically took something that was extremely erotic and very intentional, and I reduced it to a simple kiss. I got a lot of criticism for that.

The older I get, the more I look at movies as a moving miracle.

I feel I'm all over my movies. I know my movies are all over me.

There are three movies that I am exceptionally proud of in my life, and I rarely commit to a list of films that I like, that I've made... but these are the three films that I was passionately connected to. The first was 'ET,' the second 'Schindler's List,' and third is 'Saving Private Ryan.'

Humans are the only hunters who kill when not hungry.

If I weren't a director, I would want to be a film composer.

Making a movie and not directing the little moments is like drinking a soda and leaving the little slurp puddle for someone else.

Audiences are harder to please if you're just giving them effects, but they're easy to please if it's a good story.

Whether in success or in failure, I'm proud of every single movie I've ever directed.

Because of how much movies cost, it's dangerous to be experimental on one film after the other. But we can experiment with television. We can do things that are fringe and bring ideas to the table that are offbeat and original.

I love history, so I do a lot of movies about history.

The person I enjoy working for more than anyone else is George Lucas. He's the best boss I ever had because he's the most talented boss I ever had.

I'm very collaborative with everybody on the set.

I guess the greatest cliché we've ever heard, but the most important words spoken, is, love, you know, love your neighbor and, as you would yourself. It's a biblical term, it's important, and it's embraced by every religion and yet it seems to be a far cry from what we're experiencing today.

I hate that people think it's wrong to say you're inspired by Jaws or by Raiders Of The Lost Ark. You're allowed to be.

I always like to think of the audience when I am directing. Because I am the audience.

Science fiction really is the only genre that lets you use your imagination without limitations.

People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don't have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.

[The way Stanley Kubrick] tells a story is antithetical to the way we are accustomed to receiving stories.

'The Color Purple' is the kind of character piece that a director like Sidney Lumet could do brilliantly with one hand tied behind his back.

I don't really have a schedule of when I want to show my children my movies.

There's been more written about Lincoln than movies made about him or television portraying him. He's kind of a stranger to our industry, to this medium. You have to go back to the 1930s to find a movie that's just about Abraham Lincoln. I just found that my fascination with Lincoln, which started as a child, got to the point where after reading so much about him I thought there was a chance to tell a segment of his life to to moviegoers.

Naturally, it is a terrible, despicable crime when, as in Munich, people are taken hostage, people are killed. But probing the motives of those responsible and showing that they are also individuals with families and have their own story does not excuse what they did.

I've kept the people who've been in my career who I feel are my family. Kathy [Kennedy] had been with me since 1978. Janusz Kaminsky, my cinematographer, has made every movie with me since Schindler's List. Michael Kahn has cut every movie I've directed since 1976 when we made Close Encounters together. Rick Carter has done more than 15 of my directed films as a production designer.