Meaningful Content Quotes

Editing is agonizing, fretting over facts; it’s not virtue-signaling or confusing the ephemeral with the eternal. Unless we can tell the difference between the meaningful and the meaningless, the material and the immaterial, we will be lost in illogic.

I guess I'm trying to write stuff that I, as a viewer, would connect to.

I think we have a responsibility to shape the zeitgeist with the movies we put out there. Because 'After Earth' isn't going to do it. 'The Expendables 3' isn't going to do it. You could make one million amazing films for the amount of money they spend on those films. I get frustrated.

Brands are facing a new competitive landscape in which self-definition, core values and purpose will increasingly define their ability to reach customers that only allow what is meaningful in their lives to pass through their filter.

Everybody is trying to make something real, something with a core of substance, and of course, an exciting action movie with a lot of terrific stuff and fantastic visuals and everything, but at the core of it, it's a movie with substance and something that is going to make people think.

If something in your writing gives support to people in their lives, that's more than just entertainment-which is what we writers all struggle to do, to touch people.

Years ago I read an interview with Paula Fox in which she said that in writing, truth is just as important as story. Reading that interview was the first time I really understood that there's no point in trying to impress people with my cleverness when I can just try to write honestly about what matters most to me.

If something is a comedy for the sake of just comedy's sake and it doesn't have a good message, I don't have an interest in being part of it. If something is just serious and scary with no good message, I don't want to be a part of it.

The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

Acting and making art is just something I love to do, and I love to tell stories that feel important, honest and necessary.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

Resist the temptation to try to use dazzling style to conceal weakness of substance.

I think Facebook has a lot of work to do to make sure people are seeing meaningful things and not garbage.

I can't make a movie unless I believe in the themes behind it. I mean, that's the first question I ask myself, always, is, 'What is this movie about?'

There are two tests that we [writers] have for all of our writing: So What? and Who Cares? There is an answer to both. The answer to Who Cares is that a reader cares, if the writing is good. The answer to So What is that these ideas give us completely new understanding, change our sense of who we [people] are and why we're here [on this planet].

Lyrics are kind of the whole thing; it's the message. Something might have a beautiful melody but if it's not the truth coming out of your mouth, it's not appealing.

No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.

I prefer to make movies which not only have a message for 'then' but a message for 'now.'

Art cannot result from sophisticated, frivolous, or superficial effects.

I suppose that Heartland, Unknown Soldier and Pride and Joy represent not a quieter side but more of a serious side to my work, something I've been getting into recently.

I will not support any game that doesn't express what I think is worthwhile.

If you don't have anything to say, your photographs aren't going to say much.

If you're lucky enough to be involved in a film that's about something very real and that you hope will continue to hold up in 20 years' time it just gives you more energy and makes it feel all the more worthwhile.

I always want everything I do to be somewhat cinematic. I don't want to be the rapper that'll just post up and shoot a video anywhere with no real meaning to it.