J.J. Abrams Quotes

What if the constellations no longer held?
[...] Would it not cause one to scrutinize the totality of one's surroundings carefully? Would it not terrify?

I was just like, "I want to make a decent 2-D movie." I was so worried that, instead of being a decent 2-D movie, it would have been a bad 3-D one.

I'm an impatient guy and tend not to like to stay with one thing for a long time. I'll never be able to write as many scripts as I did for "Felicity" or "Alias" ever again. I'm just too impatient these days. I want to get on to the next project.

I believe in anything that will engage the audience and make the story more effective.

It is an incredible thing to see how many crazy things get thrown out that people then often write commentaries about how happy they are or how disappointed they are about something that's completely false. But, it's a lot of noise, frankly.

Whenever a toddler sees a pile of blocks, he wants to tear it down.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) is probably the most influential film of my generation. It's the personification of good and evil and the way it opened up the world to space adventure, the way westerns had to our parents' generations, left an indelible imprint. So, in a way, everything that any of us does is somehow directly or indirectly affected by the experience of seeing those first three films.

You know, we've got to this place, where you go to a movie for one particular surgical fix. So, it's like, I want the pulse-pounding action, or the insane falling-off-my-seat comedy, or the devastating, heart-breaking drama.

I guess the idea of not wanting to choose to direct a film, for which I've not read a script. It's a tough decision to make without seeing any pages. That's not to say that I don't have all the faith in the world in the spectacular writers.

I am lucky, I'm the first to admit that.

I feel like obviously the standard for what TV looks like changes all the time.

I hope to make movies that are so small they don't need to make anything to be profitable.

Don't sell your story, just tell your story.

There's something about looking at Super 8 films that is so evocative. You could argue it's the resolution of the film somehow because they aren't crystal clear and perfect,so there is a kind of gauzy layer between you and what you see. You could argue it's the silence of them. You could say it's the sound of the projector that creates a moodiness. But there's something about looking at analog movies that's infinitely more powerful than digital.

All I know is that I've made some big screw-ups, and I've done some things that have done all right. I just keep trying to learn from the mistakes I've made.

We're always pitching ideas and being told "no thank you." No offense taken, because I would so much rather be told the truth that they're not interested and be able to find the right show for that network down the line.

It's what happens. You love, then you lose, then you die. Even if you survive, you die.

I'm obsessed with things that are distinctly analogue.

Well, we're all victims of our own gene pool. Unfortunately, someone must have peed in yours. - Walter Bishop, "Fringe" (TV)

The Internet now provides an immediate and very clear consensus of what it is that the audience is experiencing. It's something that you should never let lead you, and yet at the same time, you should never ignore it.

When I was a little kid - and even still - I loved magic tricks. When I saw how movies got made - at least had a glimpse when I went on the Universal Studios tour with my grandfather, I remember feeling like this was another means by which I could do magic.

If you watch the first [Star Wars] movie, you don't actually know exactly what the Empire is trying to do. They're going to rule by fear
but you don't know what their endgame is. You don't know what Leia is princess of. You don't yet understand who Jabba the Hutt is, even though there is a reference to him. You don't know that Vader is Luke's father, Leia is his sister
but the possibility is all there. The beauty of that movie was that it was an unfamiliar world, and yet you wanted to see it expand and to see where it went.

Whenever I've directed something, there's this feeling of demand and focus that I like.

I think admitting youre an addict is the first step towards recovery.

I'm not trying to be coy or manipulative or Machiavellian, I want to spark people's imaginations.

One of my favorite things about 'Star Trek' wasn't just the overt banter but the humor in that show about the relationships between the main characters and their reactions to the situations they would face; there was a lot of comedy in that show without ever breaking its reality.

Honestly I'm excited about the possibilities of what comes next, and the funny thing is, that is sort of what "Star Wars" is kind of about. I mean, I remember being 10 years old and seeing that movie and leaving the theater and feeling like, oh, my God, anything is possible. And I feel like anything is possible right now. I don't know what's next, but I look forward to it.

The thing is: you might be right to trust someone at one point, but they can change."
"+ in between they must be drifting from trustworthy to not. But you can't tell how far they've drifted until it's too late.

My mother is the coolest, most amazing person I know.

I do feel like no matter what you're doing, whether it's music or writing a play or a poem or drawing a picture or painting something, that you're speaking to what is it you want to express, what is it you want to see.

The noise you hear after people see something you do
whether it's a TV show or a movie
that always makes you see that thing slightly differently. Without question. The ability of a television series to make adjustments is something you've got to take advantage of. And test-screening a movie can be helpful too. But the part that can be dangerous is when you take those notes as gospel, instead of taking them with a grain of salt. The key is to use the response as one of the tools in your box, as opposed to using it to determine what you do.

To be a self rewritten from a lost first draft.

I have nothing against 3-D in theory. But I've also never run to the movies because something's in 3-D.

You never want to have that ticking clock and know that you had all this time and didn't use it.

I'd love to do a movie where the monster is human, where the issue is not otherworldly, or horror or science fiction.

But I'm grateful for everyone who would want to read a spoiler because it means that they care and want to see the movie ... I know what it feels like, as an enormous Star Wars fan myself.

There are always a bunch of ideas floating around and I do the best that I can to try to not do them. The ideas don't go away and, over time, are finally like, "Okay, it's been around so long, I have to get this thing out," and it somehow ends up coming to some version of fruition.

I try to work on shows that I would want to watch.

George Lucas is the reason that we got to make this movie, you know, he was the man that created this whole galaxy, and I am incredibly grateful to him. He's an artist and he's a grown-up. And I take him at his word, and it doesn't mean I agree with everything he says, but I respect, you know, his right to his opinion.

Whatever is being investigated, created or produced now, in movies or TV, needs to consider the context in which it is being distributed. It's not a vacuum. There are certain universal themes of love, conflict, loyalty or family that are everlasting and that need to be presented in a way that makes it feel relevant, even if it's a period piece. You need to consider what context that film, that story and those characters are being seen in.

I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid.

As a kid, 'Star Wars' was much more my thing than 'Star Trek' was.

I feel like I learn every day how I can be a better producer or writer or storyteller. The thing that keeps me the most balanced is just going home every day and getting my ass kicked by my kids, and having a wife who is the most wonderfully/brutally honest person I've ever met. I think that that is always the first lens through which I see the world. For everything else, I'm just grateful for the people I work with.

You know, we didn't want to kill anyone, but we knew that "Star Wars" is a generational tale. It always is. And for it to have some guts and some resonance and true stakes, I don't think that everyone could have come through the story unscathed.

Obviously with the Internet and increased access to other means of watching shows, the audience has dispersed and is all over the place and that is a challenge.

I've always liked working on stories that combine people who are relatable with something insane.

I've had the same friends since I was in kindergarten.

I'm literally open to any medium that will have me.

I don't think it was hate,' Castus replied thoughtfully. 'I think it was fear.

I think you have a passion and an obsession for something when it's not necessarily ubiquitous.

I'd like to use IMAX. The problem with IMAX is that it's a very loud camera. It's a very unreliable camera. Only so much film can be in the camera. You can't really do intimate scenes with it.

This is where his life - his remade life - has brought him. Each strange juncture has led to the next and now he is here. He is here, and it is nowhere.

I think when you're 10 years old, it's too much to see something with the threat of death in every episode. Kids are better left naive about certain things.

People never know what they want, though everyone says they do. If they did, nobody would ever be surprised.

Ratings have changed, viewer habits have changed and the options for the audience have grown enormously, but I don't think how you tell a story is fundamentally different.

I love working with the right actor, and if the right actor happens to be unknown, that should be allowed, too, I think.

What's a bigger mystery box than a movie theater? You go to the theater, you're just so excited to see anything - the moment the lights go down is often the best part.

The magic that works, to me, is the magic that feels completely grounded and real and tangible.

It's cool to be a nerd. There's a general understanding that smartphones didn't come from jocks. The digital age was foreseen by a group of short-sleeved, buttoned-down, white-shirted guys and their female equivalents designing the very stuff that's now ubiquitous.

I try to push ideas away, and the ones that will not leave me alone are the ones that ultimately end up happening.

I do think there's something about the digital age that is increasingly dehumanising us. We're in this very weird place where we're being pulled into experiences that aren't really experiences at all.

I will say that what's been funny is, since the lightsaber's come out, I cannot tell you how many contradictory emails I have received from people who have both defended it with unbelievably detailed graphicsI've gotten things that are nuts, and I've gotten people who've shown how it'll kill you and how it doesn't make any sense. It's been the funniest thing to see the arguments that have developed over this thing.

Well, when Kathy Kennedy, who is the president of Lucasfilm, came to me to ask if I'd be interested in working on this "Star Wars" movie, we talked about a young woman at the center of the story from the outset. And it was something that was always an important part of this movie.

When you work on something that combines both the spectacular and the relatable, the hyperreal and the real, it suddenly can become supernatural. The hypothetical and the theoretical can become literal.

I'm not as optimistic as Gene Roddenberry was. I fall somewhere in the middle. But as a romantic, I like to think things are going to get bigger rather than worse.

There's nothing wrong with doing sequels, they're just easier to sell.

I've just been lucky to work on things that I felt would be cool to see. It's not that I had a strategy or anything.

And the parents who knew "Star Wars" could take kids and feel like they've gone back to a place that is familiar and yet found brand-new characters that took them somewhere they'd never been. And it was important me that we embrace that feeling, and you can call it retro, but I think it's what "Star Wars" is.

When I was a kid, among the other embarrassing things I would do, and there's a list of stupid things, but I would make these dumb comedy tapes. I would often make prank phone calls, but I would also do it with friends.

I was more of a Star Wars kid, actually. I always thought Star Trek was a lot of talk, and it felt a little self-important. It was hard for me to get into it.

I was never really a comic-book fanatic.

Cameron Crowe is someone who I've admired for so long, and I've been friends with him for many years, and I've wanted to work with him so badly that I just never stopped bothering him about writing a script that would be for a pilot.

When I was a kid, it was a huge insult to be a geek. Now it's a point of pride in a weird way.

Making movies was more a reaction to not being chosen for sports. Other kids were out there playing at whatever; I was off making something blow up and filming it, or making a mould of my sister's head using alginating plaster.

I love stories where the impossible appears believable, plausible and real. Maybe it's silly, but it's one of the reasons Michael Crichton's writing always appealed to me: he took outlandish ideas and made them seem completely within the realm of possibility. I remember reading "Jurassic Park" and feeling like: "Oh, yeah
no, that's totally happening right now. They're bringing back dinosaurs!

Well, we knew that we wanted to tell a story that made bold choices, and one of those bold choices was meeting a storm trooper and seeing who this person was. That's something that had never been done.

Every hour that you spend doing something, even if you love it more than anything, you're not with your family. Every project that you take on, that's another choice.

I think that the success of the film is as much about it being something that families could share as anything else.

It's more important you learn what to make movies about than how to make movies

Pitching is always a weird, difficult thing.

All the times I've been lucky enough to be a part of a show that's actually gotten on the air, it's always that same mixture of excitement and utter fear.

On movies like Star Trek and Star Wars, you have so much that will be created or extended digitally, and it's a slippery slope where you can get lost in a world of synthetic.

I have no style. There are certain people who just have a visual sense that defines their work. You could probably watch 30 seconds of anything they do and you'll know exactly who directed it. I don't have that skill.

I sort of love the idea of, you know, watching something and then having to wait for the next episode.

You can never guess or assume what anyone is going to think.

'Star Trek' was always a little bit closed emotionally. I never connected to the characters.

Stories in which the destruction of society occurs are explorations of social fears and issues that filmmakers, novelists, playwrights, painters have been examining for a long time.

I feel like in telling stories, there are the things the audience thinks are important, and then there are the things that are actually important.

I'm working on the Star Wars script today and the people in my office have covered up all my windows with black paper. I guess they wanted to make sure no one could see what I was doing. It seems rather extreme.

I love the idea of anthropomorphizing machines. I love the idea of taking technology and giving it a personality.

I feel like the beauty of this age of filmmaking is that there are more tools at your disposal, but it doesn't mean that any of these new tools are automatically the right tools. And there are a lot of situations where we went very much old school and in fact used CG more to remove things than to add things.

I don't think anyone wants a movie on time that's not worth your time.

When you go to commercial, you want something to call the viewers back, and if you don't have a decent act out, the audience probably won't be there in the numbers you want when the show returns.

Robotics are beginning to cross that line from absolutely primitive motion to motion that resembles animal or human behavior.

I remember being taught to read at a very early age. Like creepy young. I remember being in the crib, reading. My parents were very impressed. My reading speed, comprehension and overall ability has remained at that level ever since.

We live in an age of instant knowledge. And there's almost a sense of entitlement to that.

It's a leap of faith doing any serialised storytelling.

To me the interesting main character is never the one without flaws.

The idea to put episodes out weekly in theory makes as much sense as putting them all out at once.

I've never done Twitter.