Foster Friess Quotes

The secret is not to make a film that causes something like Virginia Tech to happen. The secret is to make a film that stops it happening.

I was in high school when Columbine happened.

There's no problem on the planet that can't be solved without violence. That's the lesson of the civil rights movement.

We have an epidemic of gun violence in America, and in trying to understand how that has happened, part of what we need to do is help equip our children to respond not with fear but with kindness. This has to be the way we go forward.

I nursed men back to sanity who were driven to despair. I solicited clothes for the ragged children, for the desperate mothers. I laid out the dead, the martyrs of the strike.

I had these experiences as a kid; I remember certain things happening in school that were horrifying that I would see, certain things of violence or certain things of cruelty, but around that, something might happen afterwards to cause everyone to laugh, and that always blew me away.

Whenever I have a bad day I just think of these people.

Do something that makes a difference - because, by God, there's a lot to make you angry.

I think it will bring back discussion about Columbine. When Columbine happened it was the topic of the week, and we shouldn't have just moved on to something else. Whether people like the film or not, it's going to make them think about what happened.

I have had bullets flying at concerts, but I don't want to talk about that.

After 'A Perfect Storm' came out, I heard from a young reader, who had suffered a similar background as 'Arizona,' that I had helped her to find peace. That was the most amazing thing in the world to me.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.

Take away the violence and who will hear the men of peace?

None of my characters seem to have had sex yet - I haven't written about that. And I wouldn't want to deal with what's happening in Oregon - the school shootings.

I often close my eyes because I can't tolerate violence.

It's always sad if anybody you know has a personal problem.

I am personally saddened and stunned by the tragic events that took place in Red Lake.

I've been on the wrong end of violence, and I've done violence myself... I refuse to glorify violence in my movie and television roles.

For the cause that lacks assistance, the wrong that needs resistance, for the future in the distance, and the good that I can do.

The intense media coverage of today's campus shootings presents a double edged sword. On the one hand, it gives us a chance to think about and reflect on the causes; on the other hand, in a very small minority of unstable minds, the repeated telling of the stories can be interpreted as glamorous.

Naturally, it is a terrible, despicable crime when, as in Munich, people are taken hostage, people are killed. But probing the motives of those responsible and showing that they are also individuals with families and have their own story does not excuse what they did.

Typical news accounts and commentaries about school shootings and rampage killings rarely mention gender.

I made 'Bowling for Columbine' in the hope the school shootings would stop and that we would address the issue of how easy it is to get a gun in the United States, and tragically, those school shootings continue.

There is no accurate or useful 'profile' of students who engage in targeted school violence. Some come from good homes, some from bad. Some have good grades, some bad.

Martyrdom does not end something. It is only the beginning.