Top 283 Quotes & Sayings by George Lucas - Page 3

They were at the wrong place at the wrong time naturally they became heroes

All of my films have been very hard to understand at the script stage because they're very different. At the time I did them they were not conventional. The executives could only think in terms of what they'd already seen. It's hard for them to think in terms of what has never been done before.

If you want to be successful in a particular field or endeavor, I think perseverance is one of the key qualities. It's very important that you find something that you care about, that you have a deep passion for, because you're going to have to devote a lot of your life to it.

I was a terrible student in high school and the thing that the auto accident did - and it happened just as I graduated, so I was at this sort of crossroads - but it made me apply myself more, because I realized more than anything else what a thin thread we hang on in life, and I really wanted to make something out of my life.

You can be as rich, and famous, and powerful as you want to be, and it will not bring you happiness. That's said over and over and over, again. It's such a cliché that it hardly needs to be said, but people don't understand that it's actually true.

I regret not the things I have done, only those I have yet to do.

Star Wars is a saga of Good vs. Evil, divided into nine parts.

[In ancient Rome,] why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew? Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

You need peers; you need people who are at the same level you are. You never know in life when you're going to need help, and you never know who you're going to need it from.

Most artists, most painters, even composers would want to come back and redo their work. They've got a new perspective on it, they've got more resources, they have better technology, and they can fix or finish the things that were never done.

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.

Time is more important to me than money.

I'm here, and every day now is an extra day. I've been given an extra day so I've got to make the most of it.

May the Force be with you.

If I had time and a hammer, I'd track down every bootleg copy and smash it.

When people talk to me about the digital divide, I think of it not so much about who has access to what technology as about who knows how to create and express themselves in the new language of the screen. If students aren't taught the language of sound and images, shouldn't they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read and write?

You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks.

I am more of a visual person than a verbal person. For me, I think, the excitement is the fact that I found a way of telling the story as I want to tell it, in a medium that I could master.

If I'd have gone to art school, or stayed in anthropology, I probably would have ended up back in film ... Mostly I just followed my inner feelings and passions ... and kept going to where it got warmer and warmer, until it finally got hot ... Everybody has talent. It's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is.

The thing about science-fiction fans and "Star Wars" fans is they're very independent-thinking people. They all think outside the box, but they all have very strong ideas about what should happen, and they think it should be their way. Which is fine, except I'm making the movies, so I should have it my way.

I like racing. I love the speed and I'm a very kinetic person in terms of filmmaking. I love the movement of film more than anything else.

In the end, the most important thing to me is that I've raised three kids. I know that'll be the most important accomplishment of my life and it is the most easily obtainable, because all you have to do is pay attention. It is hard work and most people don't realize that's the real gift they are getting in terms of goals and success and accomplishments.

I want to live where I want to live, and I will make films because I love to make films.

I wanted to be a car mechanic and I wanted to race cars and the idea of trying to make something out of my life wasn't really a priority. But the accident allowed me to apply myself at school. I got great grades. Eventually I got very excited about anthropology and about social sciences and psychology, and I was able to push my photography even further and eventually discovered film and film schools.

Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose

The older you get, the less seriously you take criticism. I've gotten to a point now where I ignore it completely. It's just not relevant to me anymore.

I would like to see our society mature, and become more rational and more knowledge-based, less emotion-based.

Most organisms either adapt and become part of the system, or get wiped out. The only thing we have to adapt to the system with is our brain. If we don't use it, and we don't adapt fast enough, we won't survive.

STAR WARS is really three trilogies, nine films. The first trilogy covers the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire, the middle trilogy the fall of the Empire, and the last trilogy involves the rebuilding of the Republic. It won't be finished for probably another 20 years.

I intend more of a kinship with silent films than more modern film. I like the old cinema. My films are more of a hybrid - a different style of filmmaking to what I call talking head movies. Some people don't get it. Especially the more academic types.

Success is when you try to achieve your inward vision externally and have it come off the way you see it. Then YOU feel successful about it; that's how success is measured.

I am simply trying to struggle through life trying to do God's bidding.

We were always dreaming of how it was going to be.

My first six years in the business were hopeless. There are a lot of times when you sit and you say "Why am I doing this? I'll never make it. It's just not going to happen. I should go out and get a real job, and try to survive."

You have the most important job of anyone today. Our kids need you to advocate for their futures.

But having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences - is very, very important to actually being able to make movies.

From kindergarten to college, certain teachers engaged my curiosity and motivated me to learn. While I was not the best student, their efforts left a lasting impact.

It's now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I've always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime.

If America is the pursuit of happiness, the best way to pursue happiness is to help other people.

Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells.

You try to get yourself into a situation where you only have to answer to yourself, where you can ask advice of people and work with your peers and mentors and things to try to do the best job that you can possibly do.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be ?replaced? by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.

The script is what you`ve dreamed up - this is what it should be. The film is what you end up with.

The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.

Our system of education is locked in a time capsule. You want to say to the people in charge, 'You're not using today's tools! Wake up!'

Sometimes you must let go of your pride and do what is asked of us. Anakin Skywalker, Episode 2: Attack of the Clones

My life is making movies. I like storytelling, and I've got a lot of stories that are stored up in my head that I hope to get out before my time is up.

There are a lot of movies that are badly made that I love, and there are a lot of movies that are just beautifully made but I don't like them. And critics have a tendency - that's all they focus on, which is, "I like it. I don't like it. It's good. It's bad."

That had always been my purpose: to get people back in touch with what makes us so valuable as a human race.

After a lot of struggling and sort of reflection I realized that the time you have to give is now, regardless of how old you are.

I think one of the reasons that Steven (Spielberg) and I have been as successful as we have is because we like the movies. We like to go to the movies. We enjoy movies and we want to make movies like the ones we enjoy.

I came from a very avant-garde documentary kind of film making world. I like cinema verité, documentaries. I liked non-story, non-character tone poems. And that's the film making that I was interested in.

There wasn't much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult.

I must admit I suffered a bit when I first came to England. But then I realised that there was nothing to be intimidated by, everybody had two legs.

I have a strong feeling about interesting people in space exploration. . . . And the only way it's going to happen is to have some kid fantasize about getting his ray gun, jumping into his spaceship, and flying into outer space.

Education is the single most important job of the human race.

You really have to focus on what you're doing and just plow ahead no matter what hurdles are thrown in front of you.

I've discovered that most critics themselves are cinematically illiterate. They don't really know much about movies. They don't know the history. They don't know the technology. They don't know anything. So for them to try to analyze it, they're lost.

Each time I do a trilogy it's ten years out of my life. I'll finish Episode III and I'll be 60. And the next 20 years after that I want to spend doing something other than Star Wars. If at 80 I'm still lively and having a good time and think I can work for another 10 years between 80 and 90, I might consider it. But don't count on it. There's nothing written, and it's not like I'm completing something. I'd have to start from scratch. The idea of a third trilogy was more of a media thing than it was me.