Roger Ebert Quotes

Good filmmakers make bad films; it happens.

Reviewers are usually people who would have been, poets, historians, biographer, if they could. They have tried their talents at one thing or another and have failed; therefore they turn critic.

I think filmmaking is largely about preparation and taste and luck. If you have all of those three things, I think you will find you can work somehow.

People like my films. They understand me through my films; it's like a connection that has been established between all my work and myself and the audience and the viewer.

If the movie works, nobody notices the mistakes... If the movie doesn't work, the only thing people notice are mistakes.

The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be.

I don't think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck.

I feel like it's my responsibility to be the greatest I can be. If I go out there and start making terrible music, I don't expect people to like me. If I'm making great music and there's no reason for people to not like me, that's when it's going to make me upset. People just need to take a chance and listen.

If you run into trouble doing what's expected, people sympathize with you, while if you try something else and flop everyone says, You see?

If you never want to be criticized, for goodness sake don't do anything new.

Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. … It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. Not everyone can be the artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.

People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired.

You can work on a movie for years, and you won't know until you show it to an audience for the first time if it makes any sense to them at all, if they're touched, if they find it funny, so it's endlessly exciting, because failure is just right there all the time, and your chances of success don't rise that much based on the fact that you succeeded last time.

When Marconi suggested the possibility of wireless transmission of sound (the radio),he was committed to a mental institution. But people like Lincoln, Edison, and Marconi were strongly motivated. So they didn't give up. They somehow knew that the only real failure is the one from which we learn nothing. They seemed to go on the assumption that there is no failure greater than the failure of not trying, and so they continued to try in the face of repeated failures.

That's just a part of being an artist: you can't write great stuff all the time, because if you did, then you'd be inhuman. The human side of people is that sometimes they fail.

I don't look down to an audience. I look up to them. They respond to quality.

Friends and family will tell you why your ideas won't work. Most are left-brained employees and specialists and NOT entrepreneurs.

Don't listen to the malicious comments of those friends who, never taking any risks themselves, can only see other people's failures.

Genius is full of trash.

I don't feel any pressure at all because I don't care. That's an occupational hazard... but if you're doing anything of any worth, and not doing something that's safe and anodyne and trying to be populist and a national treasure, then you've got to assume that as many people hate what you do - and you - as like what you do and like you.

The creator gives no heed to the critic unless he becomes a barren inventor.

Roger Ebert was such a champion of underrepresented filmmakers. He was a very big deal to me. It shows the power of critics. People who write about film, like you, can really affect the confidence of a young filmmaker. He did that for me, so it was such a pleasure to have an opportunity to talk about Roger in the movie.

Talent is less important in filmmaking than patience.

I can't let fear kill my creative brain. Fear is the killer. Your bad choices come from fear. And I'm constantly combating fear. I'm one of the most fearful people, which may be why I'm so sensitive about it. I combat fear, constantly. So, when something like this happens, it only makes us stronger, but it reminds you that your strength is by being able to fight that stuff off and being okay with failure. If I get everything I wish and I get to make movies for the rest of my life, I'm going to have many failures and I need to be okay with that.

If you try to make interesting films, you're going to be disappointed most of the time. I choose just not to look at it that way.