Nicholas Meyer Quotes

So I decided to move that scene in the doctor's office to two-thirds into the movie, after the viewers had come to know Ryan and Ali and share in their happiness.

The producer and writers [ of X-Men: Apocalypse ] were kind of feeling me out with, "Are you okay with the fact that you die?" and I was, like, "Yes." That's something that people would talk about, so I thought it was cool that I died. Havok was in three movies and then I get to be remembered.

I don't know what the definition of a short story is, and I don't even care to answer that question. That's something somebody in academia would think about. I just want to tell a story, and if people listen, and if it stays with you, it's a story.

The way my books are structured, everyone was together, then they all went their separate ways and the story deltas out like that, and now it’s getting to the point where the story is beginning to delta back in, and the viewpoint characters are occasionally meeting up with each other now and being in the same point at the same time, which gives me a lot more flexibility for killing people.

Tolkien made the wrong choice when he brought Gandalf back. Screw Gandalf. He had a great death and the characters should have had to go on without him.

I have a bad habit, in the shows that I run, of killing off the people that I love.

I thought it [Star Wars] was too wacky for the general public. Right or wrong this is my movie, this is my decision, and this is my creative vision, and if people don't like it, they don't have to see it.

Roughly, the action of a character should be unpredictable before it has been shown, inevitable when it has been shown. In the first half of a novel, the unpredictability should be the more striking. In the second half, the inevitability should be the more striking.

Music for me is something I prefer to keep away form the whole business part of my life. I feel like everything I do, in a way, has some sort of business around it. So with my music I can have my privacy. If people don't have to pay for it then I think they can be a little more open to new ideas.

You kind of worry for the characters in a way that you don't normally in sci-fi, because sci-fi tends to be about the ideas, and this is about people.

Executives and studios really like to have control over their product. They panic or they're not secure enough to trust in the powers of really amazing improv people.

Probably a good idea, let me know how it ends" "I already know how it ends" "You read the ending first?" "I always read the ending before I commit to the whole book." "If you know how it ends, why read the book?" "I don't read for the ending. I read for the story".

The studio's a collaborative environment. I just try to let people bring their own ideas to the songs and see what happens.

It's tough to make music and make it your own, and not have somebody call it something you don't agree with but can't control. Sometimes the press doesn't realize how much power they have and how they can shape somebody's life. I think there's a lot of people just trying to make music and get their art out there, and their heads get f**ked by the press calling them this or calling them that.

Last, but not least -- in fact, this is most important -- you need a happy ending. However, if you can create tragic situations and jerk a few tears before the happy ending, it will work much better.

I think the writers give us different people to work with, different situation scenarios to be in and there's always that fun balance of, you know, trying to keep it light and, you know, light-hearted and put in the comedy while trying to make it into drama.

Anyone can write five people trapped in a snowstorm. The question is how you get them into the snowstorm. It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience. To think of a plot that is, as Aristotle says, surprising and yet inevitable, is a lot, lot, lot of work.

The fun thing we get to do is mess around playing all sorts of different people. People that really existed, people that exist in a book - whom people love and have a specific idea of who they are, and you kind of have to work with that - or people that you can take a completely fresh look at.

You have to treat it like a fresh character. Sure, there are guidelines so that you don't upset people, but you have to find your own way.

Smaller movies are great because you don't have to argue with so many people all the time. But really I like arguing so there's a balance either way.

The only way you can really deal with creative people is with very loose reins.

There are two different kinds of actors. There are people who take it just so damn seriously. Then there are guys like me that just get up and love doing it.

No organization ever created an innovation. People innovate, not companies.

Shakespeare put no children in his plays for a reason," Sir Godfrey muttered, glaring at Alf and Binnie. "You're forgetting the Little Prince," Polly reminded him. "Who he had the good sense to kill off in the second act," snapped Sir Godfrey.

I feel like you have to earn something with an audience. If I just did it now, I think producers on any superhero movie, I think they wouldn't trust me to do it the way I'd want to do it, because I'd want to do something basically really strange. I think you have to earn that freedom to do stuff like that. So I think, if I keep kind of chipping away, trying to do good movies and interesting, strange movies then people will eventually trust you to do that on a bigger scale.