Cory Barlog Quotes

It's funny, but no matter how good an artist is, it's not until he stands on his own two feet and sticks to his guns that things are going to come together.

What you're really after when you see a film or listen to a song is a singular vision, and I'm not sure how much of that you really get in Hollywood.

When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.

It's good to please the network, but you really just have to tell the stories you want to tell, and if you try to please other people, it ends up starting to water stuff down. Those decisions we have to make are hard, but we usually just err on the side of 'What would we want to see?'

I just write what I write, produce the music I produce and try to give myself a chance to stay true to the art form. If you try to rein in an art form, it can be hurtful to what you are making.

We got full artistic integrity and autonomy over what we were doing, and that was the main important thing that kept our band alive.

Young people have realised that an artist is in charge of what they're doing - this crazy cynicism that artists were puppets has disappeared.

A writer writes what interests him and what he can manage, and what he can make live, as Flannery O'Connor said. So my reaction to someone saying "You must!" or "You should!" or even "Hey, why don't you?" is basically to sort of shrug and politely walk off and do whatever I want to do. It's nobody else's business, really, and even if I happened to agree with one of those "musts" or "shoulds" what would I do about it, if my heart wasn't in it?

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

I don't care what the public wants, I'm going to give it what it needs!

I want to make music that I like; not something that I have to make because I think it's going to sell.

I don't think that Dreamworks would have signed me expecting to really mess around with whatever it is I do.

I came to filmmaking because it's my passion. I decided I can't have it distorted or marred by someone else deciding what it should be.

When my writing really started to take off was when I made a decision that I would write only what I wanted to write, and if 10 people wanted to hear it, that's fine.

I used to get in trouble with my old agent, because I've never been driven by fear or need or greed. I want my work to represent me as a person, so I can be quite fussy.

No one can give me advice on 'Star Wars' because nobody knows what I'm doing in 'Star Wars.'

Every script I've written and every series I've produced have expressed the things I most deeply believe.

Every artist has to make their own statements and they have to live with them.

I just want to make my music, and I want it to stand on its own.

My colleagues and I have to constantly remind each other that we must keep our own view on the world while making films. With 'Chicken Run,' we learned how easy it is to be influenced by outside forces, but you mustn't lose the heart and soul of what you are doing.

Some of my best experiences are with writer/directors. Guy Ritchie is one. I feel they have a clearer view of what they want to do. They haven't got to try and interpret someone's writing; it's all theirs. I really admire that.

I've never been one to sit back and go, 'I'd better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don't want to lose them.'

I need to find a way of retaining creative control.

They say I'm insane because I need to have so much creative control. They say I'm unmanageable, but I'm not. I just know what I like. I'm obsessed with it. If you can't control it, that's like having somebody else paint your pictures. How could you do that? I never could.

You're supposed to be a control freak when you're an artist. That's the whole point of having a vision: Why have one if you're not going to protect it?