M. Night Shyamalan Quotes

Giving should be a part of your routine, just like working out, eating, and sleeping.

You don't get to celebrate yourself unless you risk being mocked or rejected. As an artist, you cannot play it safe. You just can't.

Movies will end up being this esoteric art form, where only singular people will put films out in a small group of theaters.

My biggest fear in life is to be average.

Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

When I was a kid, I had two great guilty pleasures. One was horror movies and the other was martial arts movies.

I find it very eerie when somebody is being really polite.

There are scenes that were right on the edge, but I always try to err on non-indulgence. It's something that I'm very careful about, that I'm just leaning too hard into something.

Sometimes we do not do things that we wish to do, so others will not know that we wish to do them.

When you find your voice, your life takes on grace.

For instance, The Sixth Sense had mediocre to bad reviews. Slowly, the audience pushed it and it received critical attention.

I love 'The Killing', I love 'Homeland' and 'Mad Men', all those shows that lean into the tone of things.

My directing style is long takes. The longer take I can do, the more I can think of not doing it in cuts, the better.

I'm so from the Woody Allen/Spike Lee school.

Sometimes people can write really great scenes and even a great episode, but they can't see the bigger picture.

Great actors come with depth about how their character sees the world, and they completely defend it. They could defend it in a court of law, down to the reason the patient deserved this.

I'm super confident about creative stuff, and I'm really not confident about human interactions stuff.

I wouldn't describe myself as a do-gooder. That's really more my wife. I'm kind of just the obsessed guy who's been writing and making movies since I was a little kid, just in a room and make it.

See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky?

I like to write in a shroud of secrecy because I have to keep finding ways to scare myself.

You're never the same. You're degrading, or you're getting better. You don't stay the same.

'The Last Airbender' is genetically engineered for me. I love martial arts. I study it. The movie's based on a lot of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy. I was raised Hindu.

The beauty is that we can blur film and TV a little bit more.

You don't want to watch classics with me 'cause I'm constantly writing notes.

I knew the moment it happened, it was a miracle. I could have been kissing her when she threw up. It would have scarred me for life. I may never have recovered.

Anime is intended to have ambiguous features. That's part of the art form.

Always in life bad times will lead to great times.

There is no one looking out for us. We are all alone.

I'm so consistent that my director's cuts are usually 20-25 minutes longer than the released version of the movies.

I want to make a bunch of small movies. I'm really interested in that for me in the future.

Most of the time, I don't watch classics with anybody. I have to be by myself. That's my classroom.

Basically, when I'm writing something, I think about what is the subject of the piece. The subject of the piece is our fear of getting old, which is a variation on our fear of dying.

I consider myself an independent filmmaker.

I had a desire to do TV and wanted to get in, in the right way, knowing that I was going to learn a lot, along the way.

I storyboard every shot of my thrillers in general. I draw them out and do them.

People who come to see my movies, you're coming to see a drama masquerading as a genre piece.

I love stage actors. The pool of world class actors that have done theater [is big], there's a higher opportunity of grabbing somebody from that pool.

The whole world makes comic book movies now.

Saw #‎ Birdman . Such singular, audacious filmmaking. Can't stop thinking about the ending.

You're saying, "I'm gonna do this thing," and you have to be aware, as a rational human being, that you may not be allowed back in.

I'm from that world where I feel so comfortable making small independent movies.

This is the problem with being Indian. It's hard to be one of the family members. Everybody is white usually [in the movie].

The muscles that writers need for film are very different from TV muscles. Now, when I hire the writers and put the writers' room together, I know where their muscles need to be.

One of the reasons I really love low budget filmmaking is you don't have to think about that as much. You can have more fun and be more playful and be freer creatively.

You don't have your film finished when you have your director's cut finished. It's just a bunch of green screen.

I've been asked to direct pilots for a lot of shows.

I always thought I was going to be the film guy until I died.

My philosophy is to make movies with the biggest possible budget that will allow it to be made in an independent fashion.

Filmmakers have to find the right materials to match their [voice].

If I'm hesitant at all about an idea, then that's not the right idea.