Luc Besson Quotes

We are living in a world where the individual must learn to command the raw materials of expression. He must not be dependent all the time on the ready-made, the finished product. It's the transferring, the changing of the raw into what is the expression of your own self – the whole joy and satisfaction and frustration of life is built into this.

I think the beauty of the film industry is that if another person tries to become another person or act like another person or imitate another person, they don't really get too far. When that person starts to realize who they are and what they can bring to the table, they start to blossom and grow. With that, it's not so much me looking towards my predecessors who have paved the way in the industry - it's more getting inspired. I get little bits and pieces of what I can take from any and everybody.

There’s a great expression in Twelve Step programs: Act as if. Act as if you’re a writer. Sit down and begin. Act as if you might just create something beautiful, and by beautiful I mean something authentic and universal. Don’t wait for anybody to tell you it’s okay. Take that shimmer and show us our humanity. That’s your job.

There is only one way in the world to be distinguished. Follow your instinct! Be yourself, and you'll be somebody. Be one more blind follower of the blind, and you will have the oblivion you desire.

Competition impedes creativity because you present yourself in a way that's going to been seen by somebody outside of you. You're not very much yourself and it limits you.

If I wasted my time trying to be like everybody else when I was 10 and 11, I wouldn't be me today. So if you are gonna be the future rockstars, the future somebody, whatever you wanna be then you're wasting your time trying to be somebody else, because you'll never get to you.

It is foolish to try to imitate the skills of others.

Trying to be cool is the easiest path to mediocrity

I am still a person with a sense of superficiality that I'm trying to challenge.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there's the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn't do it the way somebody told you to do it.

I feel like it's important, especially at young age, to find exactly what it is that makes your style so important as opposed to just trying to fit into the iconic styles of performers out there.

People tried to make me something that I wasn't at the beginning of my career.

Really, I was such a late bloomer, I really didn't learn how to be me until I was in my late '40s, which is when I started playing roles that were closer to me.

There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own.

I don't think I could have tackled 'The Pura Principle' until now. It takes me about twenty years to come to term with any difficult period in my life, to get enough of a grasp on it to fictionalize it.

Whatever is about you that is translated into your art, that's gonna keep you completly original and fresh and I just think that, that's just the best advice I can give, to an artist creatively.

The more time we invest imitating others, the less that's available to discover and be ourselves.

Don't worry about writing a book or getting famous or making money. Just lead an interesting life.

People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.

I still feel like I have a lot of growing up to do 'til I find the voice. Everybody has their own voice and their own thing they want to say to the world.

The amazing thing now is that most of those so-called critics who were telling me to find my own voice seem to have lost theirs.

I remember a distinct moment when it was my junior year of college, and the content I was making was changing and not really myself, and I tried to switch back to just putting me out there. I'm happy that happened really early in my career, because that was before I started doing podcasts or writing.

A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all.

We all want to be special, to stand out; there's nothing wrong with this. The irony is that every human being is special to start with, because we're unique to start with. But we then go through some sort of boot camp from the age of zero to about 18 where we learn everything we can about how not to be unique.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.