Steven Soderbergh Quotes

I'm mystified by the stuff that doesn't work. I'm mystified by what's going on in the critical side, too. Stuff I like is getting trashed and stuff that is being praised I think is terrible. I don't really feel in sync with what's happening, but at the same time, what I think keeps me afloat is that I try not to be, and don't want to be, very indulgent. I try to make the films as lean as possible, and to not spend a lot of time crawling up my own ass creatively.

One of the big songwriting things for me has always been: always think what you do sucks. Because the second you stop believing that, you suck. And that's a fact.

I think I'm writing for an intelligent stranger - you know, in my mind I can't remember who coined that phrase first. I don't want to write anything that makes me cringe, first of all. I cringe a lot - mostly when I hear popular music.

Picasso said once when being interviewed that one should not be one's own connoisseur.

To invent out of knowledge means to produce inventions that are true. Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him. It also should have a manual drill and a crank handle in case the machine breaks down. If you're going to write, you have to find out what's bad for you. Part of that you learn fast, and then you learn what's good for you.

As a creative individual, I really go out of my way to avoid the corporate scene in terms of songwriting. If the first question is how much money is it going to make, I'm going to be in trouble anyway.

I don't mind people liking or not liking me. If you make something and then in the back of your mind you think it could have been a bit better, that can hurt a bit.

Take the risk of thinking for yourself

It's much nicer to be praised than to be damned. But you have to have a certain sense of your own priorities and ideas about what works and what doesn't because otherwise, if you're just looking for eternal validation all the time, you can be motivated by the wrong things and I don't think it's as personally satisfying in your own work.

If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you

I tend to get very suspicious of anything that thinks it's art while it's being created.

You can't really just think, "Oh, I want to make something that is going to appeal to every single person in the world." You have to just try to make a movie that comes from your heart.

When you try to put everything into music, there's no room left to try to make you think we're cool. We know you think we're cool.

The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.

In literary art, as in the art of the architect, the painter, the musician, signs that the artist is thinking of his own achievement more than of his subject always offend me.

The quality an artist must have is objectivity in judging his work, plus the honesty and courage not to kid himself about it.

I look at everything I’ve done critically - but I think that’s the job of an actor. If you ever sit on your laurels or think that you’re good - in a way, I don’t then think you’re pushing yourself.

I make movies that I enjoy making and tell stories that I want to see, so it’s hard. You never reverse engineer those things and go, “What would appeal to this or that?” Even if I tried, I don’t know. I’m an all-American kid.

I think most writers can't really think about their work without a kind of revulsion. And I think that's probably why we keep going back and trying again, trying to do better each time.

Sometimes I watch a scene I've written, and occasionally I think, "Oh, for God's sake, shut up."

Art can make a difference because it pulls people up short. It says, don't accept things for their face value; you don't have to go along with any of this; you can think for yourself.

I believe that before anything else I'm a human being -- just as much as you are... or at any rate I shall try to become one. I know quite well that most people would agree with you, Torvald, and that you have warrant for it in books; but I can't be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what's in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them.

Stop thinking, and end your problems. What difference between yes and no? What difference between success and failure? Must you value what others value, avoid what others avoid? How ridiculous!

I think the first film you do with your instincts because you haven't learned with another director or you haven't worked on other films, so you tend to do things your own way. I think what I learned the most was to take your time, to try to be less rushed into things and have some distance with what you're doing.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.