Joe Eszterhas Quotes

I have always been fascinated by the corruption of power.

I have only one loyalty - to my writing. I never wanted to be the head of a studio or a producer.

That's sort of what I felt... I miss drinking, I thought bars were truly holy places.

Cigarettes are not a part of human behaviour, they are a habit.

The studios have been taken over by marketing people and accountants.

Let's make Joe Lieberman accountable for his rhetoric. Not a penny more until he 'clarifies' his position to the satisfaction of our creative freedom.

Politics has become entertainment.

My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings.

I just wanted to make sure that what I write is what appears on screen, to not have some idiot change it on its way to the screen.

I had read too many memoirs that were written after the writer or the director was past his or her prime.

I have my own religious bond with the God in my own head.

I worry that we are approaching a time when that which is shocking is squeezed out by the Stalinism of political correctness.

In the olden days, of course, cigarette companies would pay to have their product advertised in movies and to have actors smoke cigarettes.[Ronald Reagan used to do it.]

I haven't really spoken to God since I was a boy and I've rediscovered god and prayer in the process and all of that has come together.

I started making a point earlier that women's cancer rates are skyrocketing, and we have some women movie stars, young women movie stars, who are smoking in many of their movies.

There's no doubt in my mind that Bill Clinton will stop smoking cigars, will never smoke them again, as a result of what he did with that cigar.

I've seen Joe take on many battles, cancer being one of them, and the determination that he has, and he won't stop, he's not going to make one announcement and write one editorial and go away.

Joe Lieberman frightens me. Why should we, an Hollywood voter, donate money to a man who threatens our creative freedom, our freedom of expression.

There are some young women movie stars who are doing it everywhere, smoking in every movie, sometimes even with placements with a pack of cigarettes.

If they gave a Nobel Peace Prize for work against big tobacco, not just in the industry, but also with the California tax initiative, he really deserves one.

The-one of the odd things that's going on with smoking these days is that in the '90s, smoking at movies in the '90s, there were more movies showing smoking than there were in the '60s.

I was surprised by how warm the response was, even among studio heads, who said they really, we do have to do something about glamourization of smoking.

I think it's terrible to show that to kids. It's - I think you should - if you - if you do a piece where something violent happens and someone dies or is badly injured, you must show the pain.

You must show how gruesome that death is because if you don't, then you turn into some kind of comic book and pain, then death, doesn't have a consequence, and pain doesn't have a consequence.

I think to put death on screen where it isn't that turns it into comic book time and there I think by desensitizing an audience, you really do open the possibility that someone is going to kill.

No one is going to tell a movie star to smoke or not smoke because they can do whatever they want.

I think the main issue is that a lot of the stars today are very addicted, and they simply feel more comfortable smoking as they act.

Bette Davis had a phrase that called it "cigarette smoking acting" .

Actors always loved props and-so instead of a hat or an umbrella, they feel really comfortable with a cigarette as a prop.

Anyone I think who - that would go through a cancer ward and would see the result of what smoking does, would never, ever think of smoking is sexy again.

Your characters get angry at you if you speak about them and stop you from giving birth to them on the page in revenge. Real writers sit down and write. Wannabe writers sit around and talk.

A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star onscreen is a gun aimed at a 12- or 14-year-old.

I was six when we came to this country. When I was 14 or so, I still had a lot of trouble with it.

I always try to do true endings and that's where I got into trouble always because Hollywood wants to do happy endings.

I always wanted to be a rock'n'roll star.

Sirens wailed; the revolution had come to Harrisonville. Blood was flowing on Pearl Street.

Fact is we went on to do other things. But we still wanted to do our success like rock'n'roll stars.

They do the same thing [with cigarette] that they do in the kind of action picture where you know 200 people are killed and then there's no pain.

Meanwhile, politics is about getting a candidate in front of the public as a star, politics as rock'n'roll, politics as a movie.

Don't smoke. Don't kill yourselves. Don't maim yourselves. Tell your friends. Please don't smoke.