James L. Brooks Quotes

When you find something where you can give people a message and still make it an exciting movie, you get very, very excited about something. You probably even work harder than you normally do.

Making a film is very hard work, and you live or die by the sword just a little bit every time you do it, but I wouldn't chuck it in.

When you make movies the way I do, you invest everything you have. And you do it like a crazy maniac.

I wanted to complete 'Maryada Ramanna' in a short time, but it took me almost a year, and now 'Eega' took double the time, but in the end, it was worth it.

I think if anyone tells you the odds are slim, just keep walking. Just do whatever the hell you want to do, because they don't know what they're talking about. When you love something, and you work really really hard at it, you can do it.

People may think that because I have illustrated and written all these books it must be easy for me, but it's not really easy for me. The drawing part is easy - I love doing it. But continuing to move forward is hard.

What most people do is they make terrific films, one in three if you're very lucky, maybe one in five. So you just have to keep on, you have to get through the bad bits.

When I am true to my inspiration, even fight for my design, the project always turns out well.

I start a picture and I finish it.

When I make a picture, I make love.

I worked very hard on those movies but there was some creative connection that wasn't being made.

You have to believe that things will happen, you have to work and love what you're doing.

I love making movies. But it's a lot of investing your heart and soul. It can be exhausting.

It's very hard when you're doing a new play that you believe in, and you want to tell the story in the best way possible.

I am very driven. I work really hard, whether it's acting or my charity or even poker. When I focus on something I give it my all.

I went backwards and forwards over it until I was 22. And then in the past few years I began to say to myself, OK, look, I'm not messing around. This is something I want to attack, instead of thinking, I'll just see what happens with it.

You have to make films you feel strongly about. And then hope you can find the audience.

People ask you all the time, 'Why do you do this? Why don't you quit, man, take your money and go home?' I just do it because I love making music.

I used to tell my graduate students at Stanford, 'Don't worry about what job you have to pick because your job picks you. Let your job pick you. Find something you are passionate about. Then when you are passionate, be persistent. Just keep doing it for a while because progress is always hard work. It never rests in ideas.'

I keep on working when other people are out having fun. But I love what I do and find it hard to stop.

I just find the people I want to work with and put it all together, and it's a lot of hard work, and all kinds of catastrophes happen, but I don't really get too much resistance. But when you make a movie, it seems like there's nothing but resistance. It's kind of a miracle that any movie ever gets made.

Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.

That's the most important thing to me - that if I'm gonna spend however long it takes to make a movie, give up 14 hours a day for however many weeks or months, then it's very important for me to know that I'm working with people who I respect and enjoy and that we're going for something together.

If a thing seems to you worth working for at all, if it appears to you of moment enough to challenge any effort, then put into what you do all the enthusiasm of which you are capable, regardless of criticism.

If you don't love what you're doing with unbridled passion and enthusiasm, you're not going to succeed when you hit obstacles.