George Lucas Quotations

You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

One thing about 'Star Wars' that I'm really proud of is that it expands the imagination. That's why I like the 'Star Wars' toys.

When I was making 'Star Wars,' I wasn't restrained by any kind of science. I simply said, 'I'm going to create a world that's fun and interesting, makes sense, and seems to have a reality to it.'

One of the amazing things about 'Seven Samurai' is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you've got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said.

'Star Wars' is fun, its exciting, its inspirational, and people respond to that. It's what they want.

I live a reasonably simple life, off the beaten track.

The story being told in 'Star Wars' is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you're in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they're actually not.

A lot of people like to do certain things, but they're not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.

I wanted to race cars. I didn't like school, and all I wanted to do was work on cars. But right before I graduated, I got into a really bad car accident, and I spent that summer in the hospital thinking about where I was heading. I decided to take education more seriously and go to a community college.

Working hard is very important. You're not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard.

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, 'If you don't know how to make the right decision, you're not a director.'

I loved photography and everybody said it was a crazy thing to do because in those days nobody made it into the film business. I mean, unless you were related to somebody there was no way in.

Before I became a film major, I was very heavily into social science, I had done a lot of sociology, anthropology, and I was playing in what I call social psychology, which is sort of an offshoot of anthropology/sociology - looking at a culture as a living organism, why it does what it does.

The secret is not to give up hope. It's very hard not to because if you're really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side.

I'm not much of a math and science guy. I spent most of my time in school daydreaming and managed to turn it into a living. When I was making "Star Wars," I wasn't restrained by any kind of science. I simply said, "I'm going to create a world that's fun and interesting, makes sense, and seems to have a reality to it."

Whatever has happened in my quest for innovation has been part of my quest for immaculate reality.

A film is sort of binary - it either works or it doesn't work. It has nothing to do with how good a job you do. If you bring it up to an adequate level where the audience goes with the movie, then it works, that is all.

If the boy and girl walk off into the sunset hand-in-hand in the last scene, it adds 10 million to the box office.

The influence of 'Hidden Fortress' comes up a lot because it was printed in a book once. The truth is, the only thing I was inspired by was the fact that it's told from the point of view of two peasants, who get mixed up with a samurai and princess and a lot of very high-level people.

I am a giant proponent of giant screens. But I accept the fact that most of my movies are going to be seen on phones.

I thought Star Wars was too wacky for the general public.

I was going to go to a four-year college and be an anthropologist or to an art school and be an illustrator when a friend convinced me to learn photography at the University of Southern California. Little did I know it was a school that taught you how to make movies! It had never occurred to me that I'd ever have any interest in filmmaking.

Even in high school I was very interested in history - why people do the things they do. As a kid I spent a lot of time trying to relate the past to the present.

I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.

If you really love films, and you really want to get the full impact, there's a huge difference between watching something on a small screen with a mediocre sound system and watching it on a giant screen in a giant theater with a huge beautiful sound system. I mean, the difference is electric.

Digital technology allows us a much larger scope to tell stories that were pretty much the grounds of the literary media.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film - whether it's history, psychology, economics, or architecture - so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn't going to help you unless you have something to say.

It was the money from 'Star Wars' and 'Jaws' that allowed the theaters to build their multiplexes, which allowed an opening up of screens.

'Young Indiana Jones' was one of the happiest times I ever had, so I love television.

Everyone seems to think that digital technology devoids the medium of content, but that is not true at all. If anything, it broadens the content.

Making a film is like putting out a fire with sieve. There are so many elements, and it gets so complicated.

To be renewed is everything. What more could one ask for than to have one's youth back again?

There wasn't much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things.

In 3-D filmmaking, I can take images and manipulate them infinitely, as opposed to taking still photographs and laying them one after the other. I move things in all directions. It's such a liberating experience.

Football games are on TV, and it doesn't affect stadium attendance at all. It's the same with movies. People who really love movies and like to go out on a Saturday night will go to the movie theater.

I was never interested in being powerful or famous. But once I got to film school and learned about movies, I just fell in love with it. I didn't care what kind of movies I made.

Storytelling is about two things; it's about character and plot.

A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.

All art is dependent on technology because it's a human endeavour, so even when you're using charcoal on a wall or designed the proscenium arch, that's technology.

Everybody has talent, it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is.

The secret to film is that it's an illusion.

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.

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

None of the films I've done was designed for a mass audience, except for 'Indiana Jones.' Nobody in their right mind thought 'American Graffiti' or 'Star Wars' would work.

There should be a point to movies. Sure, you're giving people a diversion from the cold world for a bit, but at the same time, you pass on some facts and rules and maybe a little bit of wisdom.

The way I define 'intelligent design' is that when people started out, we wanted to make sense of the world we lived in, so we created stories about how things worked.

You can't do it unless you can imagine it.

Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.

I grew up in San Francisco. And so I'm informed in a certain kind of way about, you know, believing in democracy and believing in America. And I'm a very ardent patriot.

I've come to the conclusion that mythology is really a form of archaeological psychology. Mythology gives you a sense of what a people believes, what they fear.

Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that's one of the hardest things to do because you don't always know exactly where you're going, and you shouldn't.

The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

I realized why directors are such horrible people - in a way - because you want things to be right, and people will just not listen to you, and there is no time to be nice to people, no time to be delicate.

As a Western, 'The Magnificent Seven' was a pretty good film. I don't think it was as interesting or as multi-faceted as 'Seven Samurai.'

I'm one of those people who says, 'yes, cinema died when they invented sound.'

There's no difference between movies and television. None at all. Except in a lot of cases, television's much better than movies.

Film is not an easy occupation. There's a lot of occupations that are difficult and film is one of them.

'American Graffiti' was unpleasant because of the fact that there was no money, no time, and I was compromising myself to death.

If you look at 'Blade Runner,' it's been cut sixteen ways from Sunday, and there are all kinds of different versions of it.

It's hard work making movies. It's like being a doctor: you work long hours, very hard hours, and it's emotional, tense work. If you don't really love it, then it ain't worth it.

Changes are not unusual - I mean, most movies, when they release them, they make changes. But somehow, when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it's the end of the world.

When you are a beginning film maker you are desperate to survive. The most important thing in the end is survival and being able to get to your next picture.

Digital technology is the same revolution as adding sound to pictures and the same revolution as adding color to pictures. Nothing more and nothing less.

I've never been that much of a money guy. I'm more of a film guy, and most of the money I've made is in defense of trying to keep creative control of my movies.

I've always been a follower of silent movies. I see film as a visual medium with a musical accompaniment, and dialogue is a raft that goes on with it.

The ideals and principles for which Dr King fought have never been forgotten and are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

Film is a very tight little box. If you don't fit in that box, you're gone. Television, there's more room to move around.

Whenever you do something, people try to re-do it and do a better version, especially if they're in another country.

I was afraid that science-fiction buffs and everybody would say things like, 'You know, there's no sound in outer space.'

For 'Star Wars' I had to develop a whole new idea about special effects to give it the kind of kinetic energy I was looking for. I did it with motion-control photography.

My life is too short to become a film studio.

I got the licensing rights because I figured they wouldn't promote the film and if I got posters and T-shirts and things out there with the name of the film on them it would help promote the movie. So, you know, the whole idea that licensing was a revenue stream didn't really occur to anybody, including me.

I have hundreds of projects that I want to do, and I'm running out of time - so they'll never get done, I'm afraid.

Luke, there is no try, there is either do or not do.

Man your ships and may the force be with you.

I don't know why the fans are so mad, ... I've been saying all along that they are my movies. Wait until they find out that my merchandising contracts all have the same text in them. When they have to hand over all their Star Wars toys, models, framed pictures, clothes, cups, and everything else to be buried with me, then they'll really flip-out.

I'm also extremely grateful that I discovered my passion. I love movies. I love to watch them, I love to make them.

Star Wars' is fun, its exciting, its inspirational, and people respond to that. Its what they want.

I see it as an opportunity to save the park, ... I love the park. I did not want to see it turned into a shopping mall.

It echoes what is about to occur with Anakin.

That way, we built this more interesting character.

When I started to write it, it got to be too big, it got to be 250, 300 pages, ... I said, well, I can't do this. The studio will never allow this. I will take the first half, make a movie out of that, and then I was determined to come back and finish the other three, or other two stories.

It would have been easy to establish paternity, but because he didn't, now Chris is likely going to suffer the consequences.

This is huge for a guy like me that's trying to get my career off the ground - to be able to open for Brooks & Dunn - the duo of the millennium - is just an absolute honor.

This is the first group I could come to that didn't ask me what digital arts are,

After that only the VHS and DVD copies that people have purchased will be left, ... That's not a problem, as each VHS copy has been encrypted to write commands to any VCR that tries to play them after a certain date to erase the tape. Any dubbed copies of these VHS tapes also contain the encryption. DVD copies of movies were easier to protect. After the same date, the DVDs simply won't play, and will come out as digital gibberish if people attempt to copy them after that date.

The costumes have a tendency to appear on the screen in a very short amount of time. It's very hard to see the detail and the thousands of hours of work that go into each (one),

It's all being buried with me, ... All copies of the two trilogies will be brought to my gravesite within one month of my death and laid to rest with me.

There were things I could have done then, I just didn't have the time and money to do it.

We're very excited about the opening of the new studio,

I figured if I got posters and T-shirts and things with the name of the movie on it, it would help promote the movie. The whole idea that licensing would be a revenue stream didn't occur to anybody.

Always remember, your focus determines your reality.

The Force is really a way of feeling; it's a way of being with life. It really has nothing to do with weapons. The Force gives you the power to have extrasensory perception and to be able to see things and hear things, read minds and levitate things. It is said that certain creatures are born with a higher awareness of the Force than humans. Their brains are different; they have more midi-chlorians in their cells.

Art is the retelling of certain themes in a new light, making them accessible to the public of the moment.

I don't ever see movies by myself. I always see them with other people because I want to know what works. I want to know where they laugh. I want to know where they don't laugh. I want to know what they think about it afterwards because in the end that's what the art that I'm working with is.

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.

You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don't have that kind of feeling for what it is you're doing, you'll stop at the first giant hurdle.

The one way the world hasn't changed: teaching is still the most important job.

I like Star Wars, it's fun and I enjoy doing it. But it's definitely not my life. I'm a bigger movie fan than I am Star Wars fan. I like making movies.