M. Night Shyamalan Quotes

A TV show where all of the characters are trying to figure out what's going on, and the suspense of that, fits my [voice] really well. You feel their frustration, anger and fear, and then, when the reveal happens, their sense of dread or horror, or whatever it is, and I like to paint with those colors.

My biggest fear in life is to be average.

Saw # Birdman . Such singular, audacious filmmaking. Can't stop thinking about the ending.

For instance, 'The Sixth Sense' had mediocre to bad reviews. Slowly, the audience pushed it and it received critical attention.

Sometimes we do not do things that we wish to do, so others will not know that we wish to do them.

I try to take B genre movies and treat them as if they're A dramas. Get the cinematographers, get the actors to do an A drama, but it just happens to be about aliens or ghosts or crazy people, or killers, or whatever it is.

Are you in my dream too?

Sometimes people can write really great scenes and even a great episode, but they can't see the bigger picture.

I think I take what you might call a B-movie story, deal with B-movie subjects, and I treat it as if it's an A-movie in terms of my approach, my crew, my actors, my ethics and so on. I guess that's my trademark or one of them, anyway!

I knew the moment it happened, it was a miracle. I could have been kissing her when she threw up. It would have scarred me for life. I may never have recovered.

I wouldn't describe myself as a do-gooder. That's really more my wife. I'm kind of just the obsessed guy who's been writing and making movies since I was a little kid, just in a room and make it.

Great actors come with depth about how their character sees the world, and they completely defend it. They could defend it in a court of law, down to the reason the patient deserved this.

The first two movies I directed failed, when I was 21 and 23, and that was the greatest thing that could have happened.

I feel most akin as an artist, in my life and my career, to Agatha Christie.

The whole world makes comic book movies now.

I had a desire to do TV and wanted to get in, in the right way, knowing that I was going to learn a lot, along the way.

Movie making is not like other art forms, like painting, or writing a novel, because that can be digested or interpreted ... It takes two years to make each one of these, and it's always judged on money.

I always thought I was going to be the film guy until I died.

I love stage actors. The pool of world class actors that have done theater [is big], there's a higher opportunity of grabbing somebody from that pool.

The beauty of the world of Unbreakable is that you're playing it for reality. It should never feel like a comic book movie. It feels like a straight-up drama. It's real. You're confronting the possibility that comic book characters were based on people that were real.

People break down into two groups when the experience something lucky. Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance.

See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky?

You don't want to watch classics with me 'cause I'm constantly writing notes.

Being insecure - I'm a master, a virtuoso - they can be handing me the keys to the kingdom and all I can think is, I hope I don't drop the key.

I want to make a bunch of small movies. I'm really interested in that for me in the future.

My philosophy is to make movies with the biggest possible budget that will allow it to be made in an independent fashion.

Giving should be a part of your routine, just like working out, eating, and sleeping.

I'm so consistent that my director's cuts are usually 20-25 minutes longer than the released version of the movies.

I love my stories being multi-layered, and coming at it from different angles, so that you don't understand the film's true emotional motivation until the very end.

Each of the actors need to have their justification for saying something awful. You want everyone to have a positive and negative thing. Even a positive thing needs to have darkness in it. It needs to have depth.

When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope.

There's a monster outside my room, can I have a glass of water?

The thing that's protected me creatively is that the movies have made profits.

My normal cycle for movies is eighteen months and each part is separate.

Most of the time, I don't watch classics with anybody. I have to be by myself. That's my classroom.

Move children! Vamanos!

Do you know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world, to not know why you're here. That's - that's just an awful feeling.

When you say 'fear of the unknown', that is the definition of fear; fear is the unknown, fear is what you do not know, and it's genetically within us so that we feel safe. We feel scared of the woods because we're not familiar with it, and that keeps you safe.

The beauty is that we can blur film and TV a little bit more.

I've been asked to direct pilots for a lot of shows.

So 'The Last Airbender' 's philosophy and culture feels like a beautiful idea to me: That we inherently have connections to the elements and what they teach us, and to each other.

I've never had an issue with studios. I believe in them as true creative partners in the process.

That's something we should be taught as kids: To be okay with ourselves.

Anime is intended to have ambiguous features. That's part of the art form.

If ever I was feeling down I would go and write something. It's a form of escape.

I like to write in a shroud of secrecy because I have to keep finding ways to scare myself.

When I was a kid, I had two great guilty pleasures. One was horror movies and the other was martial arts movies.

'The Exorcist' is the scariest movie ever made. It just felt dead-on real, like you were watching the existence of the devil.

You don't get to celebrate yourself unless you risk being mocked or rejected. As an artist, you cannot play it safe. You just can't.

One of the reasons I really love low budget filmmaking is you don't have to think about that as much. You can have more fun and be more playful and be freer creatively.

My directing style is long takes. The longer take I can do, the more I can think of not doing it in cuts, the better.

I offer originality: you don't know what my films are like until you go to them. I think that's the reason I've been getting all this attention.

I have a naive outlook on life. That's who I am.

If I'm hesitant at all about an idea, then that's not the right idea.

Filmmakers have to find the right materials to match their [voice].

I have worked hard and learnt that I have to make a decision - whether I am going to conform and protect myself or not. I chose not to.

Now that we know who you are, I know who I am. I'm not a mistake! It all makes sense! In a comic, you know how you can tell who the arch-villain's going to be? He's the exact opposite of the hero. And most times they're friends, like you and me! I should've known way back when... You know why, David? Because of the kids. They called me Mr Glass.

I grew up watching Steven Spielberg and scary movies.

There is no one looking out for us. We are all alone.

There are scenes that were right on the edge, but I always try to err on non-indulgence. It's something that I'm very careful about, that I'm just leaning too hard into something.

If I had a big brother who was a year older than me or something, I probably wouldn't have ended up being a filmmaker.

You don't have your film finished when you have your director's cut finished. It's just a bunch of green screen.