J. J. Abrams Quotes

To make independent films, you can't think about them too much, ponder on them too much, get overwhelmed by the enormity of it.

It's the story that counts.

One of the reasons we all still read Jane Austen is because her books are about universal things which still matter today - love, money, family. They haven't gone out of fashion, so it's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater to rework her in a contemporary style.

Drama and comedy, to me, are all about being surprising, coherent, and true, all at once.

Novelists want to be published and need a publisher to decide to print 20,000 copies. So you need to entertain on some level. I want to reach out and connect.

I think situations are more important than plot and character.

To be able to write a play a man must be sensitive, imaginative, naive, gullible, passionate; he must be something of an imbecile, something of a poet, something of a liar, something of a damn fool.

Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.

You can understand why good publicists go on to run distribution companies: because the creativity involved is complex and nuanced.

The business of entertainment is business first. I do a comic strip; the job, the business, is to be funny. If I’m not funny, the politics don’t matter, because no one will read it.

It all comes down to what is best for those particular genres, and if you believe in the stories that you're telling and the characters that you like that you want to tell those stories with, you can pretty much apply it to any genre.

I would like to write a play.

Be it films or shows or plays, it's the content that matters the most.

All I wanted to do was create theater for us, for our generation, for the people of this planet. And it's so rare that the art that you are making is reaching a huge mass of people.

I think about Shakespeare. Because there have been hundreds of variations of Shakespeare's plays since they've been written, and I believe it's because they're important. They're still relevant today. 'Roots' is still relevant today. The idea that we shouldn't tell this story again is very strange to me.

I don't want to miss out on the good stuff. As long as the character is good and the show is good, the medium does not matter to me. There are a few makers that I have an enormous trust in and that I know will do an amazing job.

While choosing shows, I look at stories and the concept, and that has to be different.

Star power will always remain relevant but content has become the king.

Your best work involves timing. If someone wrote the best hip hop song of all time in the Middle Ages, he had bad timing.

I think, in fact, there's a plus and a minus to knowing my prior work, Happiness and so forth. The plus is of course you can see how I play with the characters, the storylines, and the way things play off each other. And the minus is that it makes you a little bit more self-conscious, that you're not able to enter the movie as it exists and lives and breathes, because you're so busy making references, connections that you're not able to release yourself from and take the film on your own terms.

You don't have to underestimate your audience anymore. They'd actually like to laugh a little bit. So, the character came to me and once it's got its grips in you, there's nowhere to go.

My feeling has always been if you entertain people, they give you permission to do more on a thematic or character level.

I always like to try different things, different genres; stories that have a dramatic element and can generate conflict which I find appealing; where the characters have to overcome obstacles. That kind of thing is challenging.

I don't write jokes first. I write down topics. I think of what I want to talk about, and then I write the jokes - they don't write me... And even if you don't think it's funny, you won't think it's boring. You might disagree, but you'll listen. And maybe even laugh as you disagree.

I like to service the full audience of America, so I try to do things that are just real artistic, like when they don't have the most money, but it's a great piece of work. Then, there are big, fun comedies and big animated movies for kids. I want to do things for my nieces and nephews. Ultimately, we're trying to deliver something entertaining to an audience. As long as it can entertain the audience, and it makes me or my niece and nephew laugh or cry, then I think it's good.