Joe Berlinger Quotes

We want to live in the black and white, but we don't. The world is gray. And, I'm always fascinated by people who are clearly, 'This is black and this is white, and that's the way life is.' Life always has something to say about that.

The side of fairytales I don't like is that they always have happy endings, that there's just good and evil, and things are perfect. But life is a little more complicated, and that's what I try to teach my kids.

The most interesting thing about being alive is that there is no black and white; there are many shades of gray.

Life's complicated and people do things for a lot of reasons. I think if you live in a black-and-white world, you're gonna suffer a lot. I used to be like that. But I don't believe that anymore.

Life is too complex to compress into soundbites. Every situation is different.

Life is not simple, and people can't be boxed into being either heroes or villains.

Life isn't always black and white. You're not always sure you're right. At least I'm not.

Real life is never black and white why must the movies be?

We don't live in a world that's black and white.

Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?

Things are not quite so simple always as black and white.

To me, most of life kind of lives in the grey and I don't just mean morally. I just mean kind of everything. If things were black and white it would be a lot clearer as to what to do all the time.

I tend to look for the good in bad people and the bad in good people, to make them human. 'Cause I don't think that people generally are that black and white. Maybe in movie-land they can be... but that isn't necessarily all there is.

All of the films that I've made are about the country I live in and grew up in... And I think if you're going to put an artist's eye to it, you're going to put a critical eye to it. I've always been interested in the gray area that exists between the black and white, or the red and blue, and that's where complexity lies.

Choices of right or wrong are not presented to you in black and white. If they were, I'm sure most people would choose white.

Life is about the gray areas. Things are seldom black and white, even when we wish they were and think they should be, and I like exploring this nuanced terrain.

There are very few really stark black and white stories.

I don't look at things in black and white. There are big gray areas. There's a lot of slippage.

You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we're presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated - not nearly as black and white as we're led to believe.

I don't see the world completely in black and white. Sometimes I do.

That's my favorite kind of television, where it's not wrapped up in a pretty little bow. It's like life. You deal with one thing in your life, 500 others rear their head.

You know, I think a lot of times what happens when we as actors know we're playing a bad guy is we get into bad guy mode. You know what, man? In real life, bad people do good things too and good people do bad things. So you don't necessarily have to be the stereotypical bad guy to still do bad things.

An election year is no time for nuances.

I don't judge my effectiveness by how many words I say. I think liberals often see nuances in things... Conservatives tend to see things in black and white. It gives them an air of certainty and conviction that might make them more comfortable to watch.

It's very true that you can be both selfless and selfish at the same time. What we tend towards, particularly in filmmaking, is this binary sort of, 'This is a good guy, this is a bad guy.' And I quite like the fact that life is a bit more complex than that.