American movies are often very good at mining those great underlying myths that make films robustly travel across class, age, gender, culture.
The first two movies I directed failed, when I was 21 and 23, and that was the greatest thing that could have happened.
All studio movies are the middle of the Bell curve. The only way to do something is to do it yourself. And the only way to do that is to not take any money from anyone or take as little money as possible from anyone and that's it.
Hollywood and the recording industry argue that current law permits the copying of songs and movies, and sharing them on the Internet. This enables young people to grow up learning how to steal.
Well, the thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human.
I didn't know this about myself, but when 'Pirates of the Caribbean' came out I realised that I didn't enjoy a huge amount of recognition. I didn't react to it well, but I think life is about finding out who you are and what you like. So I started doing independent movies and art-house films instead.
I use to watch like maybe three or four movies, five days out of the week. I was a movie buff, but I really didn't know what it was like behind the scenes, or the whole political process of it.
Man, I love the 'Lord of the Rings' movies. Some people would say I'm weird for liking those types of movies, but they are so cool.
I want to work with great directors. I want to work on good material with good actors. I've probably done 20 movies at this point and a lot of independents. It's been an incredible ride and I love it and I'm just going to keep going and doing what I'm doing.
Everybody gets typecast in movies, but you have to make wise choices. I'd say around 90 percent of movie casting is about the way you look, so you have to fight that. If producers had their way, I'd only be in action films, but I'm interested in a more varied career than that.
I like to go from mainstream movies to more artsy films. I don't sign on for the money. Maybe I should, but I don't. There's always a good reason for doing something.
I love the first two X-Men movies because I thought that Bryan Singer did such a great job. He elevated that whole genre. He's a very talented director.
When you kill somebody in the movies, it matters, whereas in literature it can be allegorical.
In social institutions, the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.
There is no such thing as a self-made man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the makeup of our character and our thoughts, as well as our success.
The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.
Though one sits in meditation in a particular place, the Self in him can exercise its influence far away. Though still, it moves everywhere...The Self cannot be known by anyone who desists not from unrighteous ways, controls not his senses, stills not his mind, and practices not meditation.
That which exists through itself is called The Eternal. The Eternal has neither name nor shape. It is the one essence, the one primal spirit. Essence and life cannot be seen. They are contained in the light of heaven. The light of heaven cannot be seen. It is contained in the two eyes.
If the thoughts are absolutely tranquil the heavenly heart can be seen. The heavenly heart lies between sun and moon (i.e. between the two eyes). It is the home of the inner light. To make light circulate is the deepest and most wonderful secret. The light is easy to move, but difficult to fix. If it is made to circulate long enought, then it crystallizes itself; that is the natural spirit body...
True thoughts have duration in themselves. If the thoughts endure, the seed is enduring; if the seed endures, the energy endures; if the energy endures, then will the spirit endure. The spirit is thought; thought is the heart; the heart is the fire; the fire is the Elixir.
Two stones build two houses, three stones build six houses, four build twenty-four houses, five build one hundred and twenty houses, six build seven hundred and twenty houses and seven build five thousand and forty houses. From thence further go and reckon what the mouth cannot express and the ear cannot hear.
Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.
One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds.
Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.
In Fame's temple there is always a niche to be found for rich dunces, importunate scoundrels or successful butchers of the human race.
Before God manifested Himself, when all things were still hidden in Him... He began by forming an imperceptible point; that was His own thought. With this thought He then began to construct a mysterious and holy form... the Universe.
Every soul is subject to the trial of Transmigration...An individual does not know that he is called for assessment before entering this World as well as after leaving it. He does not know how many transformations and esoteric trials he has to pass through...and that souls revolve like a stone shot from a sling.
All souls must undergo transmigration and the souls of men revolve like a stone which is thrown from a sling, so many turns before the final release...Only those who have not completed their perfection must suffer the wheel of rebirth by being reborn into another human body.
To understand a holy unity, examine the flame rising from a candle. We see at first two kinds of light, one glistening white and one blue or black. The white light is above and rises in a straight line, the blue or black light is beneath and appears to be the source of the white; yet the two lights are so closely united they form one single flame. But the source formed by the blue or black light is, in turn, attached to the wick under it. The white light never changes, it always remains white; but several shades are distinguishable in the lower light. Moreover, the lower light moves in two opposite directions; above, it is connected to the white light, and below, it is attached to the burning matter; this matter continually consumes itself and rises toward the upper light. It is thus that all that is, reunites with the one unity.
The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One.
Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong.
Technological change defines the horizon of our material world as it shapes the limiting conditions of what is possible and what is barely imaginable. It erodes ... assumptions about the nature of our reality, the ?pattern? in which we dwell, and lays open new choices.
Hearing, seeing and understanding each other, humanity from one end of the earth to the other now lives simultaneously, omnipresent like a god thanks to its own creative ability. And, thanks to its victory over space and time, it would now be splendidly united for all time, if it were not confused again and again by that fatal delusion which causes humankind to keep on destroying this grandiose unity and to destroy itself with the same resources which gave it power over the elements.
A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.
Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great. Without it no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.
Fame - a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on.