Joe Eszterhas Quotes

Television is full of fictional and real violence that's turned into entertainment.

We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn't have a sort of influence. It does.

I think movies glamorize violence, in the sense that they make it in a way that it's either cool or funny.

In movies, it's so easy to have this 'boom,' to kill, and I think that's inhumane.

So, if falling crime rates coincide with the rise of violent video games and increasing violence on TV and at the cinema, should we conclude that media violence is causing the drop in crime rates?

The copycat effects of media violence, similar to those previously attributed to westerns, radio serials and comic books, are easy to exaggerate.

I do show violence as entertainment. Clearly, I'd be a liar if I said I didn't.

America's addiction to violence is partly evident in the heroes it chooses to glorify.

We see death constantly on film.

It's something that I am going over in my head about the whole video game thing, and whether you support violence by being in a film like this. I mean, to me, it's incredibly unreal and it's all about the action, and just explosions.

Most screen violence is tedious.

All the violence in videos and movies, you can't tell me that that wouldn't influence a disturbed person.

I'm very careful about how I portray violence in my films. I do believe that violence, especially violent video games, are not a good thing for young kids.

Movies these days have made killers into funny people. What's that all about? I've got kids and family and friends, and I don't like bad things. I don't think they're funny, and it's irresponsible to make movies that don't show you how that's not good.

When I was a kid, I saw 'Rambo First Blood', and the next day, I took knives to school and threw them at everybody. So I was definitely influenced by violent films before 'Drive.'

There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people through vicious and violent video games.

I watched the footage of Saddam being executed, and it really made me think...is there nothing on the internet that I won't masturbate to?

Susan Bordo’s Unbearable Weight is a masterpiece of complex an nuanced thinking not only about a significant problem that faces women but about our culture. A very valuable book.

A lot of people in the movie industry tend to run and hide from it like ostriches. Movie industry people are definitely in denial right now, but you do become desensitized to violence when you see it on the screen so often. Let's face it, violence exists for one reason in movies, and that's to get an effect, create an emotion, sell tickets. - on the link between movies and school violence.

I think it's very important what young people see in pictures or on TV or in magazines. Drugs, violence, anorexia. All of the things that I absolutely do not reference in my photos.

I don't believe terror and horror are just vicarious pleasures. I think it routes itself in your mind. It can affect your mind. Look at what's going on in the America today. The violence is just awful and I think a lot of has to do with what they are showing on the movies and television.

I think TV remotes should have a button that allows you to kill the person on the screen.

Children model the behavior of adults, on whatever scale is available to them. Ours are growing up in a nation whose most important, influential men - from presidents to the coolest film characters - solve problems by killing people. ... We have taught our children in a thousand ways, sometimes with flag-waving and sometimes with a laugh track, that the bad guy deserves to die.

It's the difference between hunting a lion and hunting a deer. If someone hunts a lion, it's like: "Wow, they're brave!" But if they're hunting a deer it's like: "That poor deer!" I know that. I know that guys getting killed is horrible but people have seen it before. You've seen The Evil Dead. With girls, it's like: "I don't want to see that happening..." I know that.

The amount of response I get, in both a negative and a positive context, is completely related to the amount of books I sell, I think. It seems to have nothing to do with what I'm writing, but what degree of success I'm perceived to have. It's really weird, especially since I spent so much of my life covering people who are famous. It's interesting to actually have it happen to me on some level.