Eric Fellner Quotes

There are an infinite number of ways to be moved in the theater.

The audience likes their emotions to be touched. They want to laugh and cry and feel good.

On stage, it is a tremendous thing to be able to make people laugh. But one of the things that I have always loved is when I am in shows where you can turn the audience upside down and make them cry or move them. That is when things are the most rewarding.

My approach is so simple; every song I sing, every story I tell, every move I make, must move the audience to laughter, tears, or inspiration. Otherwise, why do it? It's the communication.

We give you this story. It is for the audience to be moved and gut wrenched, not us. It isn't as if we don't go through those real feeling and it isn't as if I don't cry three or four times a night. I usually do.

It's very difficult to get an audience to be terrified of what's going on. Think about it: You're in a room with so many other people, so for them to be terrified and to care about what's going on on-screen takes a lot of work.

When I did 'Venice Dawn,' there were times where people would cry after listening to it.

I feel I should try to reveal. When you hit it right, you produce an emotional response in the listener that can be cathartic. When you're wrong, you're soppy, sentimental.

Writers write for one reason: to create an emotion in the reader, to reach across and make them feel something. You want a reaction. Yeah, it's nicer when the reaction is to throw flowers than it is to throw brickbats, but you have to accept both equally.

I haven't been to many music events where somebody was performing and it actually made me cry.

The people only understand what they can feel; the only orators that can affect them are those who move them.

I want to make movies that pierce people's hearts and touch them in some way, even if it's just for the night while they're in the cinema; in that moment, I want to bring actual tears to their eyes and goosebumps to their skin.

I question what emotion Manilow touches. People are entertained by him. But are they emotionally moved? I don't believe anything that Barry Manilow sings.

When I'm sitting writing, I know that something works if I've made myself cry, or laugh, or have a visceral emotion.

If you're feeling emotional when you're creating something, it'll sound that way.

If I'm not moved by what happens at the end of this play, then I've completely failed, and so has the play, and so has our production. And if that's the case then there really isn't any reason to want to do it.

I would like to say that I was inspired to write 'Shiver' by some overwhelming belief in true love, but here's my true confession: I wrote 'Shiver' because I like to make people cry.

No one - apart from my agent, perhaps - should leave one of my shows in tears.

I don't know why people are so surprised by my live performances. My approach is so simple; every song I sing, every story I tell, every move I make, must move the audience to laughter, tears or inspiration. Otherwise, why should I do it?

Who didn't cry at 'The Notebook?' If you didn't cry at 'The Notebook,' something is probably wrong with you.

Above all, I try to create an emotion to which others can respond.

I cannot tell you how many people, powerful people, come to my studio and they are in tears they are so moved by what they see.

The way a musical can make us feel is unlike anything else, in song and particularly in dance. I think people fly through plate-glass windows when they get shot because movies don't have dance scenes any more. This is what we do instead.

Even if somebody wanted to tell me what one of my songs meant to him or her, I can't do it - I would be probably put to tears every time.

My most successful song was 'Language' and I think partly because it's a nice, dancey record, but I'll see people cry in the audience to that song, and that's so much more interesting to me than making someone just jump up and down.