Clint Eastwood Quotes

You never know how a film will play, whether it will be successful or not, or whether it will touch the audience. I always said to myself that whatever happens, big audience or small, that I would not let the results have an impact on my way of working. But it would be a bit silly for me to change my methods when I have a big success. That means my methods work well.

You'll go mad trying to figure out what people want. I don't bother. I write the stories I want to read.

If I start thinking, 'Is this movie going to open? Is this movie going to do well?' I'm not focusing on the job. The job is to make a good movie.

I don't pay much attention to the press. My films always get good reviews and bad reviews. I just try to make the best film I can.

You know what? I never really factor Hollywood into anything. I'm a black actor, so I can't really control what Hollywood thinks. I gotta go do my thing, and my jokes have got to be funny. Whatever I do has got to be great.

I don't put any pressure on myself in terms of what people or fans do or don't want. It really just doesn't occur to me. I honestly just want to make the films I want to see as a fan. The film will survive or fail in my mind by how much I like it. Having said that, everyone wants their films to do well and to be well-received.

You can't please everyone... If you make a good movie, that's all that matters.

There are so many things that have to go right for a movie to be good that it's a miracle whenever one is.

I'm just going to write my books and do my work and release it. Let the world decide what it is, and if it's any good or not.

I hope they get something of interest out of it, but I'd rather they all hate it and I like it, instead of vice versa... I make films to please myself first, and if the audience likes them, all the better.

I'm very happy for whatever plaudits might come the way of my work, but I never ever sit down to write x with y in view - whether it's a reader, a prize or a sale.

I don't think you can really make television based on what you think audiences want. You can only make stories that you like, because you have to watch it so many times.

I'm not ashamed of any work I do. You can't decide a film's fate before its release. There's no surety that your new films will be better or worse than your previous ones. You can only hope to surpass your efforts.

I can never think about, 'Is this going to sell? Is this going to work on radio?' I just have to get in the zone where I'm like, 'Do I love this, or do I not love this?' Essentially it all comes down to that.

I just make music that I love. I'm kind of selfish when I make music. I'm like, 'Do I like this?'

At the end of the day, I just like to make the best music that I can make and put it out to the world and see how they respond to it.

Nobody wants to make something that displeases people, but once you make a film, that's out of your control and you can't think about that. You just have to follow your head and make sure that you're satisfied by putting down what you intended.

The last thing I think about when I'm making music is its reception.

The bottom line is if the movie does well, everybody is happy and they forget about what they went through. And if it doesn't, it's 'I told you.' There's one director who I won't mention, who said, 'it's all blood under the bridge.'

I make a film like I cook for friends. I hope they like it, but if they don't, I'm prepared to enjoy it all by myself.

The real artist while he paints does not think of the sale, only of the need to make a beautiful living thing.

I stand by the Lost finale. It's the story that we wanted to tell, and we told it. No excuses. No apologies. I look back on it as fondly as I look back on the process of writing the whole show. And while I'll always care what you think, I can't be a slave to it anymore. Here's why: I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really … I was alive.

Most of my records are never going to be commercial successes, and I don't expect that. It's just all a learning process to me. If something appears as a failure, fine. If there's success, fine. I like the record, and my friends like the record, and that's kind of all I can really care about.

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.

Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.