When you make motion pictures, each picture is a life unto itself. When you finish and the picture is over, there's an understanding, a realization that we'll never be assembled this way again. That these relationships are severed forever and ever. And each of these films is a little life.

John Huston

Categorized in : Forever Realization Understanding

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world.

John Huston

loneliness together world

I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like.

John Huston

movie inspiring people

A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.

John Huston

one-day made moving

A work of art doesn't dare you to realize it. It germinates and gestates by itself.

John Huston

dare realizing art

Hollywood has always been a cage...a cage to catch our dreams

John Huston

cages hollywood dream

Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place they're capable of anything.

John Huston

faces facts people

I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.

John Huston

god drinking beer

Even Michelangelo on his deathbed thought he'd done nothing to ennoble art. He wanted to destroy his work-the Pieta! And this from the greatest artist who ever lived. Of course I am not comparing my work to Michelangelo's. But this eternal dissatisfaction of the artist is what I was talking about.

John Huston

done talking art

What to do when inspiration doesn't come; be careful not to spook, get the wind up, force things into position. You must wait around until the idea comes.

John Huston

inspiration wind ideas

Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it.

John Huston

trying beautiful giving

Critics have never been able to discover a unifying theme in my films. For thatmatter, neither have I.

John Huston

theme film able

I relieve myself from the rigours of directing by casting the movie correctly.

John Huston

casting rigour

Once you have found the right shot to introduce the scene-written your first declarative sentence-then the rest flows. You've found the key to the whole scene.

John Huston

flow keys firsts

Crime is a left- handed form of human endeavor.

John Huston

left-hand crime form

I would spend more time with my children. I would make my money before spending it. I would learn the joys of wine instead of hard liquor. I would not smoke cigarettes when I had pneumonia. I would not marry a fifth time.

John Huston

pneumonia wine children

You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize you are only part of a great nameless procession.

John Huston

arches flow doors

She went right down into her own personal experience for everything, reached down and pulled something out of herself that was unique and extraordinary. She had no techniques. It was all the truth, it was only Marilyn. But it was Marilyn, plus. She found things, found things about womankind in herself.

John Huston

down-and technique unique

I don't approve of censorship. I like the French theatre idea. Put on the play, and if the audience doesn't care for it, or feels offended by it, they rip up the seats.

John Huston

rip play ideas

For sheer strength of character, I wouldn't have dared to cross swords with Callas. I would rather have gone six rounds with Jack Dempsey.

John Huston

six gone character

Marilyn was one step from oblivion when I directed her in The Asphalt Jungle. I remember she impressed me more off the screen than on…there was something touching and appealing about her.

John Huston

touching steps remember