Ava DuVernay Quotes

I'm happy - at times - making films. I'm certainly unhappy not making films.

When I'm making a movie, it's making use of my creative juices, and it fills me up with what really is - I think my purpose here is to tell stories.

The main thing that excites me and makes me want to get out of bed is the thought of being able to go into my studio to work on music.

I make films for myself, first and foremost, just because it is such a personal experience, and it's something I really have to want to do and feel connected to.

I love writing, but I stopped because I felt I was more effective approaching filmmaking from a different vantage point.

I do not know whether I would not like much better to have produced one perfectly formed child by intercourse with the muses than by intercourse with my wife.

There's only one reason for my whole life, and that's art. Nothing else counts; nothing else gives me pleasure; nothing else gives me satisfaction.

I get to sing and act and write and create and produce for a living and share art with people, and I feel like a piece of that is in honor of those who came before me.

I love directing; it felt right to me when I did 'Flying Lessons'. It's something I will do again. Really, you can always be working and developing. That's something that's kind of ever constant.

It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't.

All the difficulties surrounding the making of 'Mars et Avril' actually fueled its creativity and contributed to its international success!

I'm glad I took the leap away from acting into going behind the camera because it's much more satisfying - I love acting and I still do, but it's much more satisfying to be able to make the stuff.

Once I've finished a film I just want to get on and make another one.

I had been trying to make movies, but they were really hard to get made. TV wound up, by surprise, a much more fulfilling place to work. That said, I've always been drawn to make movies.

I am definitely going to continue directing, but I am always going to try to explore new ways of making films. It really is possible to make films in different ways.

It seems so cliched and obvious, but write the movie you want to see in the theater.

It's a gift that we get to do the work that we do to call ourselves artists.

This creating? It's my passion.

My movies don't make any money, and they don't really light the world on fire. But I'm really lucky because I've gotten them made.

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

The arts are not a way to make a living.

All people are struggling to be creative in some way, and the artist is the one who has succeeded in this task of life.

An amateur may not be an artist, though an artist should be an amateur.

I don't think I've succeeded in making any really good films. There are moments, scenes, whole movements that sing. It has all added up to a cinema of sorts, even though I'm still learning my art.

I like to direct movies, but I don't like to goof around for eight years talking about it. And it's pretty irritating to get a movie on. So to complicate it by having more irritation as a director, I don't really need it. And because I direct a great deal still, but in the theater, I kind of get that anyway. Which is not at all to say I would never do it again, or it would never happen again.