Steven Spielberg Quotes & Sayings

Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about. — Steven Spielberg

You shouldn't dream your film, you should make it! — Steven Spielberg

I think one of the worst things that happened to me was, you know, my voluntary fallout with my father. And then the greatest thing that happened to me was when I saw the light, and realized I needed to love him in a way that he could love me back. — Steven Spielberg

I didn't read reviews earlier in my career, but I read them now as I'm older. I read them all. — Steven Spielberg

Naturally, it is a terrible, despicable crime when, as in Munich, people are taken hostage, people are killed. But probing the motives of those responsible and showing that they are also individuals with families and have their own story does not excuse what they did. — Steven Spielberg

I was making a lot of 8mm home movies, since I was twelve, making little dramas and comedies with the neighborhood kids. — Steven Spielberg

Whether in success or in failure, I'm proud of every single movie I've ever directed. — Steven Spielberg

After a scary movie about the world almost ending, we can walk into the sunlight and say, "Wow, everything's still here. I'm OK!" We like to tease ourselves. Human beings have a need to get close to the edge, and when filmmakers or writers can take them to the edge, it feels like a dream where you're falling, but you wake up just before you hit the ground. — Steven Spielberg

I love to go to a regular movie theater, especially when the movie is a big crowd-pleaser. It's much better watching a movie with 500 people making noise than with just a dozen. — Steven Spielberg

I wouldn't have filmed The Color Purple if the book had been a big fat novel. The reason I read it is because it is thin. — Steven Spielberg

Money to me is not a factor in my life. — Steven Spielberg

With all the movies I've made about history, it's not really fun because you're trying to get it right. You've got history telling how it was, and then my imagination is telling me how I wish it had been, but I can't go there, so I have to censor myself. I'm very good about stopping myself from creating history that never occurred, but it's frustrating. — Steven Spielberg

Some movies I make for myself. I just sort of make them for myself. I do that sometimes when the subject matter is very sensitive and very personal and I really can't imagine I'm an audience. — Steven Spielberg

People often tell me how much they love the digital skies that we obviously painted for 'War Horse.' Well, there's not a single sky that we put in through special effects. The skies you see in the movie are the skies that we experienced - but it was definitely challenging at times. — Steven Spielberg

When war comes, two things happen - profits go way, way up and all perishables go way, way down. There becomes a market for them. — Steven Spielberg

The internet is watching us now. If they want to. They can see what sites you visit. In the future, television will be watching us, and customizing itself to what it knows about us. The thrilling thing is, that will make us feel we're part of the medium. The scary thing is, we'll lose our right to privacy. An ad will appear in the air around us, talking directly to us. — Steven Spielberg

When I don't have a movie, I don't take a job just for the sake of working. I just sit it out until I find something I'm passionate about. — Steven Spielberg

My head's not in the clouds, but I think I've gotten too much credit for being an astute businessman. — Steven Spielberg

I dream for a living. — Steven Spielberg

Humans are the only hunters who kill when not hungry. — Steven Spielberg

I'm very used to working with first time actors - you can just look back at 'E.T.' with Drew Barrymore, and Christian Bale from 'Empire of the Sun,' who'd never made a movie before. — Steven Spielberg

I don't drink coffee. I've never had a cup of coffee in my entire life. That's something you probably don't know about me. I've hated the taste since I was a kid. — Steven Spielberg

Bloated budgets are ruining Hollywood - these pictures are squeezing all the other types of movies out of Hollywood. It's disastrous. — Steven Spielberg

I have a choice - I can either watch all the dailies, or I can follow the social media. I can't do both. — Steven Spielberg

The Japanese had a very strong belief in Bushido, death before dishonour. They were fighting for their country; they were the aggressors in World War II. — Steven Spielberg

The love we do not show here on Earth is the only thing that hurts us in the after-life. — Steven Spielberg

I'm as guilty as anyone, because I helped to herald the digital era with _Jurassic Park (1993). But the danger is that it can be abused to the point where nothing is eye-popping any more. The difference between making Jaws (1975) 31 years ago and War of . — Steven Spielberg

Actors just need each other to act together. — Steven Spielberg

I hate that people think it's wrong to say you're inspired by Jaws or by Raiders Of The Lost Ark. You're allowed to be. — Steven Spielberg

I love Rambo but I think it's potentially a very dangerous movie. It changes history in a frightening way. — Steven Spielberg

I have made almost as many films in England as I have in America. I will come back to England again and again. — Steven Spielberg

Like, I took no poetic license with 'Schindler's List' because that was historical, factual documents. — Steven Spielberg

As a Jew I am aware of how important the existence of Israel is for the survival of us all. And because I am proud of being Jewish, I am worried by the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the world. — Steven Spielberg

I think every movie I've made after 'Indiana Jones,' I've tried to make every single movie as if it was made by a different director, because I'm very conscious of not wanting to impose a consistent style on subject matter that is not necessarily suited to that style. So I try to re-invent my own eye every time I tackle a new subject. — Steven Spielberg

Because of how much movies cost, it's dangerous to be experimental on one film after the other. But we can experiment with television. We can do things that are fringe and bring ideas to the table that are offbeat and original. — Steven Spielberg

There were so many odd, strange things about Abraham Lincoln that I think nobody knew how to pigeonhole him. — Steven Spielberg

Everybody who works for Amblin Television has to do five jobs. — Steven Spielberg

The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves. — Steven Spielberg

Lincoln believed in the American people. — Steven Spielberg

Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers. — Steven Spielberg

I feel like Ive been engaged to the British Empire since 1980 and tonight you have given me the ring knighthood. — Steven Spielberg

I don't really have a schedule of when I want to show my children my movies. — Steven Spielberg

I missed my dad a lot growing up, even though we were together as a family. My dad was really a workaholic. And he was always working. — Steven Spielberg

The person I enjoy working for more than anyone else is George Lucas. He's the best boss I ever had because he's the most talented boss I ever had. — Steven Spielberg

Wherever you are, I will find you and I will bring you home — Steven Spielberg

'The Color Purple' is the kind of character piece that a director like Sidney Lumet could do brilliantly with one hand tied behind his back. — Steven Spielberg

There are so many rumours about so many of us in the public eye. Sometimes it's too hard to deny what is not true. — Steven Spielberg

I basically took something that was extremely erotic and very intentional, and I reduced it to a simple kiss. I got a lot of criticism for that. — Steven Spielberg

The older I get, the more I look at movies as a moving miracle. — Steven Spielberg

Social media has taken over in America to such an extreme that to get my own kids to look back a week in their history is a miracle, let alone 100 years. — Steven Spielberg

I turned down 'Harry Potter' and 'Spider-Man,' two movies that I knew would be phenomenally successful, because I had already made movies like that before and they offered no challenge to me. I don't need my ego to be reminded. — Steven Spielberg

My father had many, many veterans over to the house, and the older I got the more I appreciated their sacrifice. — Steven Spielberg

I had a great time creating the future on 'Minority Report,' and it's a future that is coming true faster than any of us thought it would. — Steven Spielberg

I was afraid of small spaces and I was afraid of the tree outside my window, and I had all these phobias. I think many kids have those phobias, but I probably had more than most. — Steven Spielberg

I've always been interested in how we survive and how resourceful we are as Americans. — Steven Spielberg

3D needs a trained eye. It can't be done by everybody. People who just do 3D just for the sake of commercializing their movie another five or six percent and they don't know really how to do it, they should care how to do it better by bringing other directors and collaborators into their lives to help teach and instruct how you really make a 3D movie because it's not just like putting a new lens on a camera and forgetting it. It takes a lot of very careful consideration. It will change your approach to where you put the cameras. So, 3D isn't for everybody. — Steven Spielberg

There's going to be no more digital enhancements or digital additions to anything based on any film I direct. I'm not going to do any corrections digitally to even wires that show ... If 1941 comes on Blu-ray I'm not going to go back and take the wires out because the Blu-ray will bring the wires out that are guiding the airplane down Hollywood Blvd. At this point right now I think letting movies exist in the era, with all the flaws and all of the flourishes, is a wonderful way to mark time and mark history. — Steven Spielberg

I love editing. It's one of my favorite parts about filmmaking. — Steven Spielberg

All those horrible, traumatic years I spent as a kid became what I draw from creatively today. — Steven Spielberg

For the most part, everybody who fights in war fights to survive. — Steven Spielberg

My filmmaking really began with technology. It began through technology, not through telling stories, because my 8mm movie camera was the way into whatever I decided to do. — Steven Spielberg

So I try to re-invent my own eye every time I tackle a new subject. But it's hard, because everybody has style. You can't help it. — Steven Spielberg

The only time I have a good hunch the audience is going to be there is when I make the sequel to 'Jurassic Park' or I make another Indiana Jones movie. I know I've got a good shot at getting an audience on opening night. Everything else that is striking out into new territory is a crap shoot. — Steven Spielberg

Unprotected sex just feels better in a Waffle House bathroom. — Steven Spielberg

When my children were born, I made the choice I wanted them to be raised as Jews and to have a Jewish education. — Steven Spielberg

I felt like an alien. I always felt like I never belonged to any group that I wanted to belong to. — Steven Spielberg

My early exposure to all the leviathans of the Saturday matinee creature features inspired me, when I grew up, to make 'Jurassic Park.' — Steven Spielberg

I'd rather direct than produce. Any day. And twice on Sunday. — Steven Spielberg

When I grow up, I still want to be a director. — Steven Spielberg

In the re-creation of combat situations, and this is coming from a director who's never been in one, being mindful of what these veterans have actually gone through, you find that the biggest concern is that you don't look at war as a geopolitical endeavor. — Steven Spielberg

History is so fleeting and we are so busy consuming media and the contemporary culture, voraciously gobbling it up, that we have no room to look back ever, and our young people have a tough time looking back. — Steven Spielberg

I can't describe it, what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking. This means something. This is important. — Steven Spielberg

An animal has no intellectual capacity to justify or to find reasons to exist. An animal just exists because it's the natural thing to do. — Steven Spielberg

The baby boomers owe a big debt of gratitude to the parents and grandparents - who we haven't given enough credit to anyway - for giving us another generation. — Steven Spielberg

Why pay a dollar for a bookmark? Why not use the dollar for a bookmark? — Steven Spielberg

I still have pretty much the same fears I had as a kid. I'm not sure I'd want to give them up; a lot of these insecurities fuel the movies I make. — Steven Spielberg

The most expensive habit in the world is celluloid, not heroin, and I need a fix every few years. — Steven Spielberg

If movies generically don't work, you immediately start to pick apart what ingredients contributed to that. If any movie is working, hopefully how it was made will be the least of your concern. You'll only want to have a god time. — Steven Spielberg

I go out and look for a good story to tell and if I like it enough and I decide to direct it, I become dangerously involved in becoming a part of that story. — Steven Spielberg

Once scouting fully opens its doors to all who desire the same experience that so fully enriched me as a young person, I will be happy to reconsider a role on the advisory board. — Steven Spielberg

I've always been interested in UFOs. — Steven Spielberg

Our one goal is to give the world a taste of peace, friendship and understanding. Through the visual arts, the art of celebration of life. — Steven Spielberg

Not every movie, in my opinion, should be in 3D. There are a lot of stories I wouldn't shoot in 3D. But, you know, there are movies that are perfect in 3D. — Steven Spielberg

If the movie does well, or it doesn't do so well, some movies get great reviews, some movies don't ... that's just part of what I do for a living. I just move through all that; that doesn't ever stop me. — Steven Spielberg

I made 'Saving Private Ryan' for my father. He's the one who filled my head with war stories when I was growing up. — Steven Spielberg

There is something about killing people at close range that is excruciating. It's bound to try a man's soul. — Steven Spielberg

Making a movie where the central character is a horse was a challenge. Because I'm scared of riding. I was thrown as a kid. One of my daughters is a competitive jumper, we live with horses, we have stables on our property. But I don't ride. I observe, and I worry. — Steven Spielberg

I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers. I don't think that's the right way of making a decision about whether you're going to back a film or not. — Steven Spielberg

We all feel that if we have a crazy idea that might get laughed at, there's nothing wrong with seeing if there's a crazy writer out there who agrees with us and can take it to a crazy network and somehow bring something that's a little bit daft and edgy to life. — Steven Spielberg

I'm certainly hoping that 3D gets to the point where people do not notice it because once they stop noticing it, it just becomes another tool and an aid to help tell a story. — Steven Spielberg

Lincoln's leadership is based on a number of precepts, but my favorite one is that he acted in the name, and for the good, of the people. — Steven Spielberg

I've always sort of time-locked and mind-blocked myself in my 30s, and that's always the age I feel. — Steven Spielberg

If I weren't a director, I would want to be a film composer. — Steven Spielberg

In '83, not only was there no such thing as performance motion capture technology, there was no such thing as digital animation. This was the analog era. — Steven Spielberg

People can relate to horses. Horses, I think, are basically in our genetic history. Horses were part of our culture, part of our collective society, for hundreds of years, and so, the horse is one of the most familiar animals to people of any race or culture or country. — Steven Spielberg

I don't play online games. 'Warcraft,' I've played that, but I mainly play action games. — Steven Spielberg

The public has an appetite for anything about imagination - anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible. — Steven Spielberg

From the day I started to think politically and to develop my own moral values, from my earliest youth, I have been an ardent defender of Israel. — Steven Spielberg

I think that is the secret of great acting. You have to bring your imagination to the party. You've got to have a great imagination. — Steven Spielberg

The greatest films ever made in our history were cut on film, and I'm tenaciously hanging on to the process. I just love going into an editing room and smelling the photochemistry and seeing my editor wearing mini-strands of film around his neck. — Steven Spielberg