Jason Reitman Quotes

I don't think you want to give all the answers, but I think every answer you do give should bring up another question, and not all questions should be answered.

My films are inquiries. I've chopped down all the signposts, I really resist taking moral positions.

You can be Michael Moore and make 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' but that's hitting people over the head, and a lot of Americans don't like to be hit over the head. I want to make films that make people walk out and say, 'Wow, I really question if this is all right.'

I really like people to be able to interpret stuff in their own way, I like the ambiguity of the medium. We're just four guys in a band trying to articulate things in a questioning way. Who are we to tell people what to think?

The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.

I don't know if anybody wants to mix their politics with their entertainment.

Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.

I don't think it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre.

A novel should be a book of questions, not a book of answers.

I want to give Michael Moore a run for his money.

The great thing about books is that you can end with a question mark.

I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

I don't want to be a Michael Moore-style artist, which is not to disparage Michael Moore. But he seems rather unsuccessful at winning people over who don't already agree with him.

I would make a film with a political point of view if I agreed with it, and even, perhaps, if I didn't.

I won't call my work entertainment. It's exploring. It's asking questions of people, constantly. 'How much do you feel? How much do you know? Are you aware of this? Can you cope with this?' A good movie will ask you questions you don't already know the answers to. Why would I want to make a film about something I already understand?

I like to write about questions that interest me, not the conclusions I've come to.

I make work not to give answers but to question things.

I don't see myself as a rock star. I don't see myself in that way. I'm interested in work that offers some sort of critical dialogue.

I have some pretty forceful ideas about the world - obviously I do. But I suppose I can only really speak about them from within the protection of a literary form.

I've never felt a need to really respond to someone else's writing.

To me, what is important in the theater is that we don't want to make a conclusion. We don't want to make a statement, don't want to say what something is. We want to ask, 'What is it?'

I try not to spend too much time interpreting my comics for people, because I try to put out there whatever I can, and people can draw whatever conclusions they want.

You see, the people that have a point of view and have an opinion and have some intellect are dangerous in the film community - they're dangerous.

I'm a wishy-washy 'Guardian' reader, but the last thing I want to do is force a political agenda down people's throats. It's not central to my work, unlike, say, China Mieville, who's very politicised.

A question is a pursuit, an invitation to envision and explore a series of possibilities, to struggle and empathize and doubt and believe. The question moves, whereas our sense of what an answer is can often be static, a stopping point.