John Williams Quotes

I've never been one of those guys who storyboards every frame, because that would take away some of the mystery and some of the fun.

I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people it with characters, not the other way around.

You can't buy something which does not exist. In a way, let's make things exist and then judge later. Don't cancel the process of creativity too early; let it flow.

The reason is that they define how I have gone about my business. I have trusted to intuition. I did it at the beginning. I do it even now. I have no idea how things might turn out, where in my writing I might go next.

I come in. I'm going to sketch, I'm going to drape, I don't know what I'm going to do.

It's very important to understand that we never do the same thing twice; each of our projects is unique. We'll never do another 'Gates.' Each project is a unique image. We do not know in advance how the work will look. I do preparatory drawings, but they are only projections of our vision.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

When an author creates a town in her novels, she spends a great deal of time visualizing the streets and buildings, landmarks and topography. And while the town becomes real in her imagination, it's rare for an author to see the place she's created actually spring to life.

The best way to watch a film is to not know anything about the person who made it.

I want to be surprised by life... I think that's more interesting.

I don't tend to picture my characters as actors and actresses.

It's my approach as a filmmaker always to go in, not with a thesis or preconceived notion, but with curiosity and questions and inquiry. So in some way, I'm always surprised. I'm always finding paths of engagement.

Sometimes you're talking to a tennis ball on a stick, and you have to imagine what is supposed to be there and trust that the editors and the animators are going to make it all convincing to the audience. You have to pull a lot from within.

I prefer my hesitations, my false paths, my stammering, to a preconceived idea.

The wise traveler is he who is perpetually surprised.

I'm not going to be like, "I gotta get this idea out of my head." It's like, "OK, here's a clean slate, and I've got all these paints, and all these brushes, and this is what I'm going to do with it." It reveals itself, and you take a step back and say, "What's happening here? Where are we going? What does this mean? Do I need to break it open? Does it need to just be what it is? Should it end now?"

Inspiration quite frequently arrives as a surprise. The key is being open to it.

The open mode is a mood in which curiosity for its own sake can operate, because we're not under pressure to get a specific thing done properly. We can play.

I never think of the completed film, rather the adventure of what I'm about to live.

All good and genuine draftsmen draw according to the picture inscribed in their minds, and not according to nature.

I think the important thing about staying creative and staying sharp and original is not to look back too much.

Love color. Take risks. Stay curious.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don't know what will happen... that if painters did know what was going to happen they wouldn't bother to do it.

The most important thing is to keep creating and following my inklings as they come into being and acting on them.