John Milius Quotes

Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.

Everybody's a filmmaker today.

I find that screenwriting is at best kind of a hackwork in some ways.

Films are always pretentious. There's nothing more pretentious than a filmmaker.

I may not be the strongest guy or the most well armed, but you can put me in a room with a pencil and a piece of paper and I can kill anybody.

The people that really pass judgment on you really have nothing to do with what you do, usually.

I felt that the Star Wars series became very pretentious as time went on. Just heavy and leaden.

I suppose when I started out I would have liked to have been the darling of critics or something, but everybody wants to be loved and admired.

Most artists think they're frauds anyway.

To be a good executive you have to be strong, and you have to have a simple attribute that people have forgotten about - courage.

I mean, the old film critics just excoriated me.

Also, they don't understand - writing is language. The use of language. The language to create image, the language to create drama. It requires a skill of learning how to use language.

I hardly said a word to my wife until I said 'yes' to divorce.

I've always had trouble with authority.

The filmmakers always have a great level of control.

No, you're either born a writer, a storyteller, or you're not.

Egotism is not a good quality. It's not something to be admired or even tolerated. It wouldn't be tolerated in a field commander and it shouldn't be tolerated in a movie director.

Writing requires a great deal of skill, just like painting does. People don't want to learn those skills.

A lot of people thought of me as a threat to Western civilization.

I've always been able to survive by writing, though.

I was never conscious of my screenplays having any acts. It's all bullshit.

I also thought of myself as the Sonny Barger of the film industry.

Matter of fact, the style that people use today, I invented in a way.

I'm the barbarian of Hollywood.

A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.

You know, I find it very strange when movies that I made that were just excoriated - I mean that I was just vilified for - are now looked at as classics.

Most of the good executives do pretty well. Because to be a good executive you have to be strong, and you have to have a simple attribute that people have forgotten about - courage.