S.A. David Quotes

It's a closing of the mind that happens when you want to be lazy and go with the easiest answers, like the media do all the time in their sound bytes.

The great lesson about filmmaking is never take "no" for an answer, especially if you have a lot of passion and inspiration to do something.

I think that everybody does hustle in order to survive. That doesn't mean lying - it's more about how you handle situations.

I suppose what I like about Zen is that the teachers are constantly questioning your insight and challenging it, looking for sloppiness or laziness in it, and ways you can go past that.

Some of Jimmy Stewart's performance in 'It's A Wonderful Life' is some of the most disturbing performance he ever did, when he falls apart and when he breaks down.

I feel profoundly blessed. I feel it's a great privilege to make any motion picture.

It's not easy to follow Jesus' example, and if you go to church it doesn't mean you're automatically doing it.

That's what takes people out of the fight half the time. They get hit and half the reaction is your ego is saying, 'I cannot believe that person just lit me up - how humiliating.

The religion itself may have some great ideas, but I can't take it seriously if it's blatantly exclusionary.

It's absurd that we're so quick to criticize Muslims for being fundamentalist when Christians can be just as extreme and fanatical and frightening.

Christianity has been responsible for plenty of horror and death in the world, all supposedly in God's name.

I think audiences deserve the benefit of the doubt. I prefer to be surprised by them rather then just assume they'll react negatively to any new idea.

It's my experience that endings are never easy, and I think I'm not alone among filmmakers or writers in this.

The endings for all my characters seem sufficiently human and messy for me to feel comfortable with them. In some ways they have only moved an inch, but sometimes an inch is a great distance.

Unhappy endings can be as cheap as happy endings.

If you just work on your craft hard, that's your only hope of doing anything worthwhile.

Bush was in a shithole on September 10th. 9/11 was the best thing that ever happened to him.

You can't force a movie to happen. Movies happen when they're supposed to happen. Everything happens in God's time. I really believe that.

You learn by trying and failing. Just a lot of hard work and mistakes.

What we assert, very often can become our reality. To some degree, everybody can try to shape and control their fate. Everybody picks an identity.

I think film was my passion without it being declared like a job that I could have, or a career that I could have.

Life just happens the way it's supposed to happen. It delivers you to where it delivers you.

The Republicans just want to bankrupt the government. They think that the government should do nothing, except maybe support the military. So terrorism is perfect for them.

To be honest, I think that Republicans love terrorism.

I can feel that the world this day is different than all the days of our lives before.

Thank God for your mother.

I cannot permit you to disrupt the Paramount schedule.

They're stealing my ideas. They're imitating my shots.

I was a young lad when I was growing up.

The thing about being on a long-running series is that you get to know all the stunt men and the stunt coordinators, and they let you pretty much do everything you want, as long as they trust you.

It's really important to stay engaged and involved in the character.

I've played Lear three times, I would love to do it again.

High school music teachers... nobody makes a living off it.

Be more ambitious. Don't bunt. When you get a job to do a story or an ad, try and hit the ball out of the park every time

The headline is the most important element in most advertisements. It is the telegram which decides the reader whether to read the copy.

I never assign a product to a writer unless I know that he is personally interested in it. Every time I have written a bad campaign, it has been because the product did not interest me.

What is a good advertisement? An advertisement which pleases you because of its style, or an advertisement which sells the most? They are seldom the same.

If you have a truly big idea, the wrong technique won't kill it. And if you don't have a big idea, the right technique won't help you

Advertising is the place where the selfish interests of the manufacturer coincide with the interests of society.

Never use tricky or irrelevant headlines… People read too fast to figure out what you are trying to say.

Readers travel so fast they don't stop to decipher the meaning of obscure headlines.

Lazy and superficial men and women do not produce superior work.

If you, my fellow copywriters or art directors, want to win the award, devote your genius to making the cash register ring.

It's not creative unless it sells.

I always use my clients' products. This is not toady-ism, but elementary good manners.

I'd like to be remembered, as a copywriter who had some big ideas. That's what the advertising business is all about. Big ideas

No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.

I can't stand callow amateurs who aren't sufficiently interested in the craft of advertising to assume the posture of students.

It is the inescapable duty of management to fire incompetent people.

The best leaders are apt to be found among those executives who have a strong component of unorthodoxy in their character. Instead of resisting innovation, they symbolize it.