James Cameron Quotes & Sayings

I'm hopeful that we'll be able to study the ocean before we destroy it. — James Cameron

Donald Lydecker: Alcoholism is not a disease, it's a failing. You've turned it into a church. You worship the altar of self-pity. I come to these rooms for one reason, to remember what I don't want to become ... helpless, impotent, and weak. — James Cameron

Hate is a disease, and in 1930 I became sick with hatred. — James Cameron

To convince people to back your idea, you've got to sell it to yourself and know when it's the moment. Sometimes that means waiting. It's like surfing. You don't create energy, you just harvest energy already out there. — James Cameron

I've tried not to get sucked into the Hollywood hierarchy system. Personally, I don't like it when people are deferential to me because I'm an established filmmaker. It's a blue-collar sensibility. — James Cameron

Jack: Rose, you're no picnic, all right? You're a spoiled little brat, even, but under that, you're the most amazingly, astounding, wonderful girl, woman that I've ever known ...
Rose: Jack, I ...
Jack: No, let me try and get this out. You're ama- I'm not an idiot, I know how the world works. I've got ten bucks in my pocket, I have no-nothing to offer you and I know that. I understand. But I'm too involved now. You jump, I jump remember? I can't turn away without knowing you'll be all right ... That's all that I want.
Rose: Well, I'm fine ... I'll be fine ... really.
Jack: Really? I don't think so. They've got you trapped, Rose. And you're gonna die if you don't break free. Maybe not right away because you're strong but ... sooner or later that fire that I love about you, Rose ... that fire's gonna burn out ...
Rose: It's not up to you to save me, Jack.
Jack: You're right ... only you can do that. — James Cameron

Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. 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

I blame it on Walt Disney, where animals are given human qualities. People don't understand that a wild animal is not something that is nice to pat. It can seriously harm you. — James Cameron

The literature now is so opaque to the average person that you couldn't take a science-fiction short story that's published now and turn it into a movie. There'd be way too much ground work you'd have to lay. It's OK to have detail and density, but if you rely on being a lifelong science-fiction fan to understand what the story is about, then it's not going to translate to a broader audience. — James Cameron

What are you gonna do, talk the alien to death? — James Cameron

Usually, when you go to a movie, your consciousness floats above the film. 3D sucks you in and makes it a visceral experience. — James Cameron

The quickest way to destroy ocean science is to take human explorers out of the water — James Cameron

I certainly didn't think of myself as gifted. The standards for being gifted in my environment were if you were good in Little League or if you were good in football. — James Cameron

Jack: Where to, Miss?
Rose: To the stars. — James Cameron

Action is a way of externalizing an emotional state. You might not be running, leaping, climbing and doing all that. But, the way you create that emotional state in a movie is by having the characters have physical jeopardy that they have to work against. — James Cameron

When Nikita Khrushchev wrapped himself in the bloody mantle of the Czars he broke Hungary, he broke the little Communist parties over the western world, and he broke the hearts of many honest men who had trusted a little too far, a little too long. — James Cameron

I don't look at scripts. I just write them. — James Cameron

If you wait until the right time to have a child you'll die childless, and I think film making is very much the same thing. You just have to take the plunge and just start shooting something even if it's bad. — James Cameron

People call me a perfectionist, but I'm not. I'm a rightist. I do something until it's right, and then I move on to the next thing. — James Cameron

Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own. — James Cameron

I believe 3D is inevitable because it's about aligning our entertainment systems to our sensory system. We all have two eyes; we all see the world in 3D. And it's natural for us to want our entertainment in 3D as well. It's just getting the technology - it's really more the business model than the technology piece. We've solved the technology. — James Cameron

Trusted you ...
Jake Sully: continuing what he was saying - with you.
Neytiri: getting upset I trusted you
Jake Sully: trying to calm her Trust me now. Please.
Neytiri: You will never be one of The People — James Cameron

Much of my life seems in retrospect to have been spent in the company of putative national leaders passing through the process of being denounced and imprisoned for sedition, as part of the inevitable progression towards the Prime Ministership and the ritual tea-party at Windsor Castle. — James Cameron

You're so stupid, Rose! - Jack Dawson — James Cameron

Nature's imagination is so boundless compared to our own meager human imagination. — James Cameron

I set my goals way higher than the achievable. And when I fail, I fail at a very high level. That's my process. It's really demented, but it actually works. When you are aiming really high and doing something new, you must be also prepared to fail, learn from your mistakes and begin with a new plan. More motivated than before. — James Cameron

I love you Jack.
A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets.
Jack, this is where we first met. — James Cameron

Jack: Rose! You're so stupid. Why did you do that, huh? You're so stupid, Rose. Why did you do that? Why?
Rose: You jump, I jump, right?
Jack: Right.
Rose: Oh God! I couldn't go. I couldn't go, Jack.
Jack: It's all right. We'll think of something.
Rose: At least I'm with you. — James Cameron

Tread softly upon the earth because the faces of the unborn look up at you. — James Cameron

I had pictured myself as a filmmaker but I had never pictured myself as a director if that makes any sense at all. — James Cameron

Rose: You're crazy.
Jack: That's what everybody says but, with all due respect, Miss, I'm not the one hanging off the back of a ship here. Come on. C'mon, give me your hand. You don't want to do this. — James Cameron

You know, in the film making business no one ever gives you anything. — James Cameron

Religions fulfill deep-seated psychological needs for people, and if you don't get it from a specific religious doctrine, you'll get it from the kind of films I like to make. A film like The Terminator is consciously meant to give a sense of empowerment to the individual. — James Cameron

If you want to move through a virtual reality it's called a video game, it's been around forever. — James Cameron

All my films are love stories, — James Cameron

A woman's heart is an ocean of deep secrets. — James Cameron

Once upon a time the world was a realm of unanswered questions and there was room in it for poetry. Man stood beneath the sky and he asked "why?". And his question was beautiful.

The new world will be a place of answers and no questions, because the only questions left will be answered by computers, because only computers will know what to ask.

Perhaps that is the way it has to be. — James Cameron

I do an awful lot of scuba diving. I love to be on the ocean, under the ocean. I live next to the ocean. — James Cameron

Literary science fiction is a very, very narrow band of the publishing business. I love science fiction in more of a pop-culture sense. And by the way, the line between science fiction and reality has blurred a lot in my life doing deep ocean expeditions and working on actual space projects and so on. So I tend to be more fascinated by the reality of the science-fiction world in which we live. — James Cameron

ROSE: I love you, Jack.
JACK: No ... don't say your goodbyes, Rose. Don't you give up. Don't do it.
ROSE: I'm so cold.
JACK: You're going to get out of this ... you're going to go on and you're going to make babies and watch them grow and you're going to die an old lady, warm in your bed. Not here ... Not this night. Do you understand me?
ROSE: I can't feel my body.
JACK: Rose, listen to me. Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me. It brought me to you. And I'm thankful, Rose. I'm thankful. You must do me this honor ... promise me you will survive ... that you will never give up ... not matter what happens ... no matter how hopeless ... promise me now, and never let go of that promise.
ROSE: I promise.
JACK: Never let go.
ROSE: I promise. I will never let go, Jack. I'll never let go. — James Cameron

Storytelling is storytelling. You still play by the same narrative rules. The technology is completely different. I don't use one piece of technology that I used when I started directing. — James Cameron

Hope is not a strategy. Luck is not a factor. Fear is not an option. — James Cameron

I want to challenge all of you as people of deep conscience, people who are environment stewards of the earth and oceans ... By changing what you eat, you will change the entire contract between the human species and the natural world. — James Cameron

If it was up to the studio, everything would be shot with a camcorder. — James Cameron

I love it when I have a nightmare to me that means I got my money's worth out of that eight hours — James Cameron

Your only competitors are your past achievements. — James Cameron

I'm certainly not a fan of conversion when you could shoot the movie in 3-D. — James Cameron

The film industry is about saying 'no' to people, and inherently you cannot take 'no' for an answer. — James Cameron

The universe is like a giant bank vault lock, where the tumblers are constantly moving and once in a while the tumblers line up and you have to listen for the click. So you must be prepared in that moment to step through the door. — James Cameron

I was always fascinated by engineering. Maybe it was an attempt maybe to get my father's respect or interest, or maybe it was just a genetic love of technology, but I was always trying to build things. — James Cameron

People of conscience in our leadership in Washington have been scared off by the right and the fossil fuel lobbies. They won't even use the term "sustainability" or "climate change" in an energy bill, which is ludicrous on its face. It completely ignores the elephant in the room that we're all dealing with. The average American doesn't even believe climate change is real, they think it's all a hoax. — James Cameron

Neytiri: You are like a baby. Making noise don't know what to do.
Jake : Easy. Shh. Fine. Fine. If you loved your little forest friends ... why not let them kill my ass What's the thinking
Neytiri: Why save you
Jake : Yeah. Yeah why save me
Neytiri: You have a strong heart. No fear. But stupid Ignorant like a child — James Cameron

Rose: You're trembling.
Jack: I'll be alright. — James Cameron

Logan Cale: If I just had my ass handed to me by a size three, I'd be inclined to mind my own business. — James Cameron

When i was lying in the V.A. hospital with a big hole blown through the middle of my life, i started having these dreams of flying. I was free. But sooner or later, you always have to wake up. — James Cameron

Don't get seduced by your own stuff. Don't get high on your own supply. The hardest thing as a filmmaker is when you're watching a film that you've worked on for several years. You know every frame so intimately that holding lots of the objectivity of a new viewer who has just seen it for the first time is the hardest thing. Every aesthetic decision you make - and you make thousands of them every day, have to - in theory, must be done from you being a blank slate. You almost have to run a program, like a mind wipe, every time you watch the movie. — James Cameron

This is a vast frontier that's going to take us awhile to understand. It was very lunar, desolated, isolated. — James Cameron

I watched a couple of really bad directors work, and I saw how they completely botched it up and missed the visual opportunities of the scene when we had put things in front of them as opportunities. Set pieces, props and so on. — James Cameron

We have nightmares because our brain is running simulations to put us in jeopardy to see what we'll do or to acclimatize us to that idea that something bad could happen. It's just how human beings are wired because the entire time we were evolving we had to jump quick or the leopard would get us or whatever it was. It's Darwinian. — James Cameron

Nature's not our enemy, it's our sustenance; and we need it - and we need nature healthy for us to be healthy and to survive long term — James Cameron

I think "Avatar" is kind of a unique category where people are enjoying the unique theatrical experience even though they may have seen it on the small screen. They want to have that immersive, transportive experience. "2001: A Space Odyssey" played for three years at the Loews cinema in Toronto. I remember that. It just kept playing. People wanted to return to that experience. That may not be the best example because I think "2001" took 25 years to break even. — James Cameron

We have a great responsibility. Whatever we make will become the truth, the visual reality that a generation will accept. — James Cameron

Your imagination can create a reality — James Cameron

It'll be all of our efforts together. It won't won't ever be exactly the way I imagined it. And that is, I think, an important lesson as well, is that in any group enterprise it's going to be the sum total of the group. — James Cameron

Broken Horses is an artistic triumph. Beautifully written, acted and imaged, this film wraps slowly around you like a king snake and squeezes, — James Cameron

I pick my feature film battles very carefully. They're going to be personal and they're going to take a lot of my energy. I'm not going to be some big production company and be Jerry Bruckheimer or something like that. It doesn't interest me. — James Cameron

You don't rest well as long as you're seeking vengeance. I feel sad justice wasn't done, but it's time to move on and sleep well. — James Cameron

The magic doesn't come from within the director's mind, it comes from within the hearts of the actors. — James Cameron

I came across time for you, Sarah. I love you. I always have. Kyle Reese in The Terminator — James Cameron

It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity! Or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop! ... ever ... until you are dead! — James Cameron

Go home, pick up your video camera, and make a film. — James Cameron

I like the evening in India, the one magic moment when the sun balances on the rim of the world, and the hush descends, and ten thousand civil servants drift homeward on a river of bicycles, brooding on the Lord Krishna and the cost of living. — James Cameron

Here's my philosophy in life: If there's a fire, you put it out. If there's a flood, you fill sandbags and you build a dike. You roll up your sleeves and you get to work. — James Cameron

It's important for me to have hope because that's my job as a parent, to have hope, for my kids, that we're not going to leave them in a world that's in shambles, that's a chaotic place, that's a dangerous place. — James Cameron

I had read tons of science fiction. I was fascinated by other worlds, other environments. For me, it was fantasy, but it was not fantasy in the sense of pure escapism. — James Cameron

Jace: Feels like I just woke up from a bad dream.
Max Guevara: I know. One of the reasons why I don't sleep. Let me know if it's a boy or a girl.
Jace: Either way, name's gonna be Max. — James Cameron

I actually started as a model builder and quickly progressed into production design, which made sense because I could draw and paint. But I kept watching that guy over there who was moving the actors around and setting up the shots. — James Cameron

A director's job is to make something happen and it doesn't happen by itself. So you wheedle, you cajole, you flatter people, you tell them what needs to be done. And if you don't bring a passion and an intensity to it, you shouldn't be doing it. — James Cameron

You can't be an environmentalist, you can't be an ocean steward without truly walking the walk and you can't walk the walk in the world of the future, the world ahead of us, the world of our children, not eating a plant-based diet. — James Cameron

Rose: You have a gift Jack, you do. You see people.
Jack: I see you.
Rose: And?
Jack: You wouldn't have jumped. — James Cameron

I feed on other people's creativity, photographers, artists of every kind. Sometimes a feeling that you get listening to a song can be so powerful. I've wanted to write whole scripts around what I felt just listening to a piece of music. I think music is important, and surrounding your visual field with stimulating things. — James Cameron

Inspiration can hit you in the head at any time in any context. It could happen in a conversation. Talking to someone at a party, you can get an idea. But you've got to remember those inspirations. — James Cameron

I've sworn off agnosticism, which I now call cowardly atheism. I've come to the position that in the complete absence of any supporting data whatsover for the persistence of the individual in some spiritual form, it is necessary to operate under the provisional conclusion that there is no afterlife and then be ready to amend that if I find out otherwise. — James Cameron

When the ship docks, I'm getting off with you.
This is crazy.
I know it doesn't make any sense, that's why I trust it. — James Cameron

That worst evil of long dictatorships: the loss of all political experience. — James Cameron

I mean, you have to be able - you have to have made the commitment within yourself to do whatever it takes to get the job done and to try to inspire other people to do it, because obviously the first rule is you can't do it by yourself. — James Cameron

There is a hugely underserved population out there ... those who are the least capable of paying pay the highest. — James Cameron

The snake kills by squeezing very slowly. This is how the civilized world slowly, slowly pushes into the forest and takes away the world that used to be. — James Cameron

I don't feel that I'm making movies for iPhones. If someone wants to watch movie on an iPhone, I'm not going to stop them, especially if they're paying for it, but I don't recommend it. I think it's dumb, when you have characters that are so small in the frame that they're not visible. I'm trying to make an epic. — James Cameron

Sometimes your whole life boils down to one insane move. — James Cameron

I try to live with honor, even if it costs me millions of dollars and takes a long time. It's very unusual in Hollywood. Few people are trustworthy - a handshake means nothing to them. They feel they're required to keep an agreement with you only if you're successful or they need you. — James Cameron

The nation that leads in renewable energy will be the nation that leads the world. — James Cameron

I'm willing to engage or indulge real ideas, but if we don't do something [about global warming], we're all going to die! What's it going to take, a big f
ing disaster with all kinds of people dying? We need to change our priorities fast. — James Cameron

James Cameron doesn't do what James Cameron does for James Cameron. James Cameron does what James Cameron does because James Cameron is ... James Cameron. — James Cameron

I probably spend more time writing than reading science fiction. I find that science-fiction literature is so reactive to all the literature that's gone before that it's sort of like a fractal. It's gone to a level of detail that the average person could not possibly follow unless you're a fan. It iterates upon many prior generations of iterations. — James Cameron

When you have the feeling that anything's possible, sometimes you wind up acting on it. — James Cameron

I love short trips to New York; to me it is the finest three-day town on earth. — James Cameron

Rose: But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me ... in every way that a person can be saved — James Cameron

I tend to like strong female characters. It just interests me dramatically.
A strong male character isn't interesting because it has been done and it's so cliched. A weak male character is interesting: somebody else hasn't done it a hundred times. A strong female character is still interesting to me because it hasn't been done all that much, finding the balance of femininity and strength.
[From a 1986 Fangoria interview] — James Cameron

My mother was a housewife but she was also an artist. My father was an electrical engineer. — James Cameron