Sometimes, when I am stuck on a project, I like to read some stuff from people much wiser than I about the medium I’m working in and see if there’s any advice or inspiration to glean.

Today, I want to bring you some quotes from filmmakers across time to help kick your butt into gear and make you feel the magic of the moving picture.

Let’s dive in.

The Best Quotes on Filmmaking

On Directing

“A film is—or should be—more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.” — Stanley Kubrick“Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and make a movie of any kind at all.” — Stanley Kubrick“If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.” — Stanley Kubrick“Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.” — Martin Scorsese“A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.” — Billy Wilder“The role of the director is to create a space where the actors can be fearless.” — Paul Thomas Anderson“A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.” — Orson Welles“The job of the director is to suggest two plus two. Let the audience add it up to four.” — Ernst Lubitsch“To make a film is to create a world.” — Andrei Tarkovsky“All my movies are about strange worlds that you can’t go into unless you build them and film them. That’s what’s so important about film to me. I just like going into strange worlds.” — David Lynch“I believe that the director’s job is to be the audience’s best friend. He is the person who tells them where to look.” — Frank Capra“I don’t really wanna think about themes, I wanna just think about the experience of the movie… there’s more potential for it to mean something interesting if I’m not forcing it to mean something I’ve already decided.” — Wes Anderson“The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.” — Satyajit Ray“If there’s specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can’t change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.” – Kathryn Bigelow“The first monster you have to scare the audience with is yourself.” – Wes Craven“In film, we sculpt time, we sculpt behavior, and we sculpt light.” – David Fincher“The advice I would give to any director is that you should act… It doesn’t matter how good a shot looks, the lifeblood, the thing that people will connect to, is these people.” – Greta Gerwig“My idea of professionalism is probably a lot of people’s idea of obsessive.” – David Fincher“I am not here to bring trauma into people’s life so, my job as a director is to conjure the best out of other people within what they have already to work with.” – Patty Jenkins“The movie is not only about what story you’re telling and who you’re looking at. It’s mostly about how you’re telling it and how you’re looking at it.” – Celine Sciamma

On Screenwriting

“A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end… but not necessarily in that order.” — Jean-Luc Godard“The problems of the human heart in conflict with itself… alone can make good writing.” — William Faulkner“The difference between a good movie and a great movie is the script.” — Aaron Sorkin“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh; otherwise, they’ll kill you.” — Billy Wilder“The writer is the first person who has the vision of the film. Before anyone else, he has seen it all in his head.” — Guillermo del Toro“The saddest journey in the world is the one that follows a precise itinerary. Then you’re not a traveler. You’re a f@@king tourist.” ― Guillermo del Toro“Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.” – Paul Thomas Anderson“The screenplay is the blueprint. It’s the foundation of everything.” — Denis Villeneuve“Give the audience two and two and have them make four. Don’t give them four.” — Andrew Stanton“I would have been a writer of some kind, anyway. I’m a writer who directs.” — Nora Ephron“For me, the great joy of writing is discovering what I don’t know that I know.” — Robert Towne“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” — Alfred Hitchcock“The lies are in the dialogue, the truth is in the visuals.” – Kelly Reichardt“In order to write scripts, you must first study the great novels and dramas of the world… If your goal is to become a film director, you must master screenwriting.” – Akira Kurosawa“I just want to tell good stories in ways that will shine a light on lives rarely seen on screen, because stories can push humanity forward.” – Nia Dacosta“Truly creative things happen when one thinks differently, yet nobody wants to think differently.” – Shonda Rhimes“We need Storytelling. Otherwise, life just goes on and on like the number Pi.” – Ang Lee“I’ve been obsessed with doomsday for a long time – the idea that different cultures respond to it differently, and religions will change people’s outlook on it.” – Lorene Scafaria“The characters in my films try to live honestly and make the most of the lives they’ve been given. I believe you must live honestly and develop your abilities to the full. People who do this are the real heroes.” – Akira Kurosawa

On Editing

“The essence of cinema is editing. It’s the combination of what can be extraordinary images… put together in a kind of alchemy.” — Francis Ford Coppola“Editing is the only unique art form to cinema, it doesn’t exist in any other art form.” — Thelma Schoonmaker“My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects… placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.” — Robert Bresson“A film is made in the cutting room.” — V.I. Pudovkin“The editor is the final storyteller.” — Sally Menke“First cuts are a bitch for a director, because it’s been so many months and you put your trust in your editor and you’re going to see your film assembled for the first time. You look at it and go, This is terrible. I hate it.” – Richard Donner

On Cinematography

“The most important thing is to have a point of view. Otherwise, you’re just a camera.” — Roger Deakins“Cinematography is infinite in its possibilities… much more so than music or language.” — Conrad Hall“The art of lighting for film is a matter of painting with light.” — John Alton“I think what you need to search for in films is the integrity of the image. I wanted to make films with solid images that confront the spectator.” – Alice Rohrwacher“The camera is a storyteller. It should be used to tell a story.” — Emmanuel Lubezki“Light is the main character in a film.” — Vittorio Storaro“The frame is the basis of the cinema. It’s not just a rectangle. It’s a choice.” — Paweł Pawlikowski“I’m interested in what’s hidden. The things we’re not supposed to see.” — Jane Campion

On Sound

“Sound is 50 percent of the movie-going experience.” — George Lucas“The eye sees better when the sound is great.” — Robert Bresson“The picture is the frame of the movie, but the sound is the soul.” — Walter Murch“People will forgive pretty much every technical thing before they will forgive bad sound. Your movie could look amazing, but if on every cut, the audio track is popping and making them aware of the cuts, it will pull them out.” – Ryan Coogler

On Acting & Casting

“Casting is 65 percent of directing.” — John Frankenheimer“The Biggest Mistake in Student Films is That They Are Usually Cast So Badly, With Friends and People the Directors Know.” – Brian De Palma“The art of directing is to know when to leave the actor alone.” — Cecil B. DeMille“To me, no matter who you’re casting for what role, if something’s authentic, usually you can mine something good there.” – Barry Jenkins“Our feeling is that the most important thing on a set is that actors have enough confidence to try different things.” – Peter Farrelly“The best acting is instinctive. It’s not intellectual, it’s not mechanical, it’s instinctive.” — Marlon Brando

The Craft, Philosophy & Advice

“There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.” — Frank Capra“Pick up a camera. Shoot something… Put your name on it as director. Now you’re a director. Everything after that, you’re just negotiating your budget and your fee.” — James Cameron“When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit.” ― Robert Rodriguez“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.” – Walt Disney“Film is, to me, just unimportant. But people are very important.” ― John Cassavetes“People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end anymore. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.” –Steven Spielberg“Filmmaking is not a job, it’s a passion. It’s an obsession.” — Guillermo del Toro“A film is made three times: once when you write it, once when you shoot it, and once when you edit it.” — Jean-Luc Godard“To make a film is easy; to make a good film is war. To make a very good film is a miracle.” — Alejandro González Iñárritu“I steal from every movie ever made.” — Quentin Tarantino“If a million people see my movie, I hope they see a million different movies.” – Quentin Tarantino“My three Ps of directing are: passion, patience, and perseverance.” — Robert Wise“You have to be a little bit of a poet to be a filmmaker.” — Werner Herzog“Movies are a machine that generates empathy.” — Roger Ebert“The only safe thing is to take a chance.” – Mike Nichols“A lot of times you get credit for stuff in your movies you didn’t intend to be there.” — Spike Lee“It’s all about doing it—the physicality of making films. What you see at the end is never the same as the situation of how it was done, yet that process is very important. It’s all about making a lot of mistakes and being brave.” – Steve McQueen“I don’t want to be a director. I want to be a filmmaker.” — Wes Anderson“Don’t show it to somebody until you’re ready to show it to somebody. You only have one opportunity to make a first impression. Put your strongest foot forward.” – Kasi Lemmons“When you’re doing films, just with friends, with no money, on a shoestring. You have to be able to do all the jobs… And it’s a wonderful way to learn everything.” – Christopher Nolan“I couldn’t sleep one night, and I was sitting in my office, and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.” – Darren Aronofsky“You have to make a movie for yourself. Don’t make it for anyone else.” – Jordan Peele“My advice for anyone wanting to direct is that nobody is going to hand you an opportunity. You have to create your own opportunities and not take no for an answer.” – Marielle Heller“Making films is about having absolute and foolish confidence; the challenge for all of us is to have the heart of a poet and the skin of an elephant.” – Mira Nair“As independent filmmakers, we are actually deeply dependent on each other.” – Ira Sachs“Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.” — Robert Altman“A film is a dream. And the filmmaker is the dreamer.” — Akira Kurosawa“Being an artist means not having to avert one’s eyes.” – Akira Kurosawa“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.” — Federico Fellini“Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.” – Roman Polanski“In the future, everybody is going to be a director. Somebody’s got to live a real life so we have something to make a movie about.” – Cameron Crowe“Film is a battleground.” — Sam Fuller“Eighty percent of success is turning up.” – Woody Allen

Which one is your favorite?

Let me know what you think in the comments.