John Huston Quotes

There is a wilful lemming-like persistance in remaking past successes time after time. They can't make them as good as they are in our memories, but they go on doing them and each time it's a disaster. Why don't we remake some of our bad pictures - I'd love another shot at 'Roots of Heaven' - and make them good?

There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing. By God, sir, you are a character.

Critics have never been able to discover a unifying theme in my films. For thatmatter, neither have I.

Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it.

What to do when inspiration doesn't come; be careful not to spook, get the wind up, force things into position. You must wait around until the idea comes.

I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.

Whenever something is convenient or was modified after 1970, you probably shouldn't use it as root.

When you make motion pictures, each picture is a life unto itself. When you finish and the picture is over, there's an understanding, a realization that we'll never be assembled this way again. That these relationships are severed forever and ever. And each of these films is a little life.

You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize you are only part of a great nameless procession.

What you try to become is a bringer of magic, for magic and the truth are closely allied and movies are sheer magic ... when they work, it's, well, it's glorious.

I am more lost in wonder than ever.

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.

I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like.

I don't got to show you no stinkin' bahdges!

After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor.

You're good, you're real good.

I don't approve of censorship. I like the French theatre idea. Put on the play, and if the audience doesn't care for it, or feels offended by it, they rip up the seats.

A work of art doesn't dare you to realize it. It germinates and gestates by itself.