George Lucas Quotes

“A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them: If you don't know how to make the right decision, you're not a director.”

“A film is sort of binary – it either works or it doesn't work. It has nothing to do with how good a job you do. If you bring it up to an adequate level where the audience goes with the movie, then it works, that is all.”

“A lot of people like to do certain things, but they're not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.”

“A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.”

“All art is dependent on technology because it's a human endeavour, so even when you're using charcoal on a wall or designed the proscenium arch, that's technology.”

“Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.”

“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.”

“American Graffiti was unpleasant because of the fact that there was no money, no time, and I was compromising myself to death.”

“Before I became a film major, I was very heavily into social science, I had done a lot of sociology, anthropology, and I was playing in what I call social psychology, which is sort of an offshoot of anthropology/sociology – looking at a culture as a living organism, why it does what it does.”

“Changes are not unusual – I mean, most movies, when they release them, they make changes. But somehow, when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it's the end of the world.”

“Digital technology is the same revolution as adding sound to pictures and the same revolution as adding color to pictures. Nothing more and nothing less.”

“Even in high school I was very interested in history – why people do the things they do. As a kid I spent a lot of time trying to relate the past to the present.”

“Everybody has talent, it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is.”

“Everyone seems to think that digital technology devoids the medium of content, but that is not true at all. If anything, it broadens the content.”

“Film is not an easy occupation. There's a lot of occupations that are difficult and film is one of them.”

“Football games are on TV, and it doesn't affect stadium attendance at all. It's the same with movies. People who really love movies and like to go out on a Saturday night will go to the movie theater.”

“Good luck has its storms.”

“I am simply trying to struggle through life; trying to do God's bidding.”

“I live a reasonably simple life, off the beaten track.”

“I loved photography and everybody said it was a crazy thing to do because in those days nobody made it into the film business. I mean, unless you were related to somebody there was no way in.”

“I realized why directors are such horrible people – in a way – because you want things to be right, and people will just not listen to you, and there is no time to be nice to people, no time to be delicate.”

“I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.”

“I thought Star Wars was too wacky for the general public.”

“I wanted to race cars. I didn't like school, and all I wanted to do was work on cars. But right before I graduated, I got into a really bad car accident, and I spent that summer in the hospital thinking about where I was heading. I decided to take education more seriously and go to a community college.”

“I was afraid that science-fiction buffs and everybody would say things like, 'You know, there's no sound in outer space.”

“I was going to go to a four-year college and be an anthropologist or to an art school and be an illustrator when a friend convinced me to learn photography at the University of Southern California. Little did I know it was a school that taught you how to make movies! It had never occurred to me that I'd ever have any interest in filmmaking.”

“I was never interested in being powerful or famous. But once I got to film school and learned about movies, I just fell in love with it. I didn't care what kind of movies I made.”

“I'm not much of a math and science guy. I spent most of my time in school daydreaming and managed to turn it into a living.”

“I'm one of those people who says, 'yes, cinema died when they invented sound.”

“I've come to the conclusion that mythology is really a form of archaeological psychology. Mythology gives you a sense of what a people believes, what they fear.”