James Mangold Quotes

Who cares what entertainers on the air think about international affairs? Who would want to hear me about Vietnam? They can hear all they want from people with reason to be respected as knowledgeable.

Even if people hate my other movies, and hate me, or whatever, I think from this point of view, Postal is the most important movie after September 11. It's not respecting any edge, any border, any nation, any religion - it's an all-type offender. I think that only if everybody gets a little pissed about something then you will start thinking about your situation.

I kind of think that artists throughout history, poets throughout history have been criticized for sharing what's on people's minds and I don't think it's any different now.

If you think that people today, like Hollywood, are ever gonna sing [Donald] Trump's praises, it's never gonna happen. It's only going to get worse. And they know it at the White House. They're not expecting these people to be won over. That's not why Trump's doing anything he's doing. They don't expect the establishment types to one day say, "You know what? You're right, Mr. Trump, this is great. We like what you're doing." It's never gonna happen. They don't expect that to happen.

I like the idea that [Mahatma] Gandhi is appearing now in an opera hall in all these different places, and people kind of think about it again.

I think the American public has gone from really almost white-hot anger in 2010 to an anxiety knowing their government needs to work.

I can see,’ Miss Emily said, ‘that it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now it’s gone. You have to accept that sometimes that’s how things happen in the world. People’s opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.’ ‘It might be just some trend that came and went,’ I said. ‘But for us, it’s our life.

If people want to think I get drunk and stay out all night, let'em. That's how I got here, you know.

Frankly, I get much more sensitive about what's written about me than how I look in a photo. I'm so used to people seeing my image in plays and films that what they think about how I look is none of my business. If they says, "Hey, he doesn't look good," I'm like, Whatever, because I know I look different from day to day. But if you're up there putting your heart into something and people reject your performance, that's very painful. The written word can kick your ass.

Because of my politics, people think I'm anti-American. But I was quite the reverse. What I don't like about the United States is when the government acts like an old, imperial 18th- or 19th-century European power.

My whole life, people have been saying, "Why are you so angry?" and I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. After I saw myself at the MTV Awards, I realized, Wow, I do kind of come off a bit intense. I wasn't upset at MTV at all - I didn't mean to come off that way. But I think it's good if I appeared a bit angry. People are too complacent.

I think people have made their minds up about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. They love them and hate them - love them or hate them.

Nobody went to see Tideland! I was hoping people would get angry about it but those that saw it didn't want to talk about it. This is the world we're living in, people don't want to discuss things that are actually worth discussing.

On the BSkyB bid, Rupert Murdoch is now in town in London seeking to sort things out. I would simply say to him, look how people feel about this. Look how the country has reacted with revulsion to the revelations. So do the decent and sensible thing and reconsider, think again, about your bid for BSkyB.

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.

I don't think Mike Tyson's a bad guy. I think the people, the media, makes him out to be a bad guy.

I just kind of live a life, and I let all the gossip live somewhere else. If you go too far down the rabbit hole of what people think about you, it can change everything about who you are.

Sometimes I take a temperature of things just because everyone else does. Especially when I'm doing a play. I want to know what people are thinking, positive or negative.

When you do a computerized poll, where people are comfortable, Donald Trump vote goes up very dramatically. And I think people don't realize the effort by the elite media, the totally dishonest effort to submerge him, has had an effect.

People ask could I have written the show I wrote in 1990 now, and I don't think I could. I think it's much easier to offend people nowadays. People have grown quite sensitive, I think.

I think any time you take on touchy subjects, you're going to offend some people, or you're going to please others.

Because of the movies I make, people get nervous. They think of me as difficult and angry. I am difficult and angry, but they don't expect a sense of humor. And the only thing that gets me through is a sense of humor.

Everyone in show business makes these sweeping, "I'll never work with so-and-so again," because that's the way you feel at the moment. It's a business where there really is no point in ever saying never. There are people I've sworn that I would never go near again, and then you see an interesting role that would put you opposite that person and you think, "Well, we'll work together, maybe they were having a bad year."

The most encouraging sign is that 71 percent of the public believe the system is profoundly corrupted by the power of money. Ninety-six percent of the people believe it's "important" that we reduce the influence of money. Yet 91 percent think it's "not likely" that its influence will be lessened. Think about that: People know what's right to do yet don't think it can or will be done.

It's clear the media, of course, always gives you the bad news. And people who rely on the media, like Mr. Trump, think that everything is a disaster. The media always tries to make everything into a disaster, but it's mostly rubbish. It's a point of fact that we're doing extremely well.