J. J. Abrams Quotations

To me the interesting main character is never the one without flaws.

I try to push ideas away, and the ones that will not leave me alone are the ones that ultimately end up happening.

I think you have a passion and an obsession for something when it's not necessarily ubiquitous.

You can never guess or assume what anyone is going to think.

When I was a kid, it was a huge insult to be a geek. Now it's a point of pride in a weird way.

I'm not trying to be coy or manipulative or Machiavellian, I want to spark people's imaginations.

I am lucky, I'm the first to admit that.

I think that even if you're wondering if two characters are ever going to kiss, drawing out the inevitability is part of the fun. Whatever the genre happens to be.

People never know what they want, though everyone says they do. If they did, nobody would ever be surprised.

All I know is that I've made some big screw-ups, and I've done some things that have done all right. I just keep trying to learn from the mistakes I've made.

When you work on something that combines both the spectacular and the relatable, the hyperreal and the real, it suddenly can become supernatural. The hypothetical and the theoretical can become literal.

I hate to look at the stuff I've written and consider what it means or why I do it.

I love the idea of anthropomorphizing machines. I love the idea of taking technology and giving it a personality.

I don't try and write strong female characters or strong male characters, I just try and write, hopefully, strong characters and sometimes they happen to be female.

I work with really hard-working people who are really good at what they do.

Whenever a toddler sees a pile of blocks, he wants to tear it down.

We're living at a time where if you do a Google search for a 'show, review and network,' you'll get 'The New York Times' and Pete Billingsley from a town you've never heard of on the same results page. It's kind of democratizing the process so that everyone has access to a distribution system to express themselves.

Robotics are beginning to cross that line from absolutely primitive motion to motion that resembles animal or human behavior.

I've had the same friends since I was in kindergarten.

You never want to have that ticking clock and know that you had all this time and didn't use it.

As a kid, 'Star Wars' was much more my thing than 'Star Trek' was.

My mother is the coolest, most amazing person I know.

I love movies with spectacle but spectacle can be a performance, it doesn't have to be a creature.

I'm obsessed with things that are distinctly analogue.

What's a bigger mystery box than a movie theater? You go to the theater, you're just so excited to see anything - the moment the lights go down is often the best part.

'Star Trek' was always a little bit closed emotionally. I never connected to the characters.

You know, we've got to this place, where you go to a movie for one particular surgical fix. So, it's like, I want the pulse-pounding action, or the insane falling-off-my-seat comedy, or the devastating, heart-breaking drama.

We used to have more references to things that we pulled out because they almost felt like they were trying too hard to allude to something.

I've always liked working on stories that combine people who are relatable with something insane.

Mystery is more important than knowledge.

Honestly I'm excited about the possibilities of what comes next, and the funny thing is, that is sort of what "Star Wars" is kind of about. I mean, I remember being 10 years old and seeing that movie and leaving the theater and feeling like, oh, my God, anything is possible. And I feel like anything is possible right now. I don't know what's next, but I look forward to it.

I don't want to do something that is so inside that only die-hard fans will appreciate.

It's more important you learn what to make movies about than how to make movies

One of my favorite things about 'Star Trek' wasn't just the overt banter but the humor in that show about the relationships between the main characters and their reactions to the situations they would face; there was a lot of comedy in that show without ever breaking its reality.

I was just like, "I want to make a decent 2-D movie." I was so worried that, instead of being a decent 2-D movie, it would have been a bad 3-D one.

I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid.

I sort of love the idea of, you know, watching something and then having to wait for the next episode.

There's something about looking at Super 8 films that is so evocative. You could argue it's the resolution of the film somehow because they aren't crystal clear and perfect,so there is a kind of gauzy layer between you and what you see. You could argue it's the silence of them. You could say it's the sound of the projector that creates a moodiness. But there's something about looking at analog movies that's infinitely more powerful than digital.

I feel like in telling stories, there are the things the audience thinks are important, and then there are the things that are actually important.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) is probably the most influential film of my generation. It's the personification of good and evil and the way it opened up the world to space adventure, the way westerns had to our parents' generations, left an indelible imprint. So, in a way, everything that any of us does is somehow directly or indirectly affected by the experience of seeing those first three films.

The idea to put episodes out weekly in theory makes as much sense as putting them all out at once.

Directing a movie precludes me from being involved in any greater way. But, the job was never to do more, it was always to enable. Sometimes as a producer, you're creating and writing it, or sometimes you're writing and directing it, or other times you're there from the very beginning.

I find that it's hard to fully examine one's life and not have faith be part of the discussion.

I don't think I have a signature.

I believe in anything that will engage the audience and make the story more effective.

Pitching is always a weird, difficult thing.

George Lucas is the reason that we got to make this movie, you know, he was the man that created this whole galaxy, and I am incredibly grateful to him. He's an artist and he's a grown-up. And I take him at his word, and it doesn't mean I agree with everything he says, but I respect, you know, his right to his opinion.

The magic that works, to me, is the magic that feels completely grounded and real and tangible.

We're always pitching ideas and being told "no thank you." No offense taken, because I would so much rather be told the truth that they're not interested and be able to find the right show for that network down the line.

My work isn't any more important than anything else in the family

I do think that at a certain point, the reboot sequel mode has to give way to original ideas and back to a place where, you know, films are, you know, a medium and the cinema is a place you go to see something that is, you know, wholly new.

I've just been lucky to work on things that I felt would be cool to see. It's not that I had a strategy or anything.

I think admitting youre an addict is the first step towards recovery.

I think that the reason you keep hearing that it's the golden age of TV is because original storytelling is happening all the time in that medium, and people are hungry for it. And I'm as guilty as anyone for being part of an industry that is capitalizing on existing stories, sequels, these things that we are seeing again and again and again.

We live in an age of instant knowledge. And there's almost a sense of entitlement to that.

All the times I've been lucky enough to be a part of a show that's actually gotten on the air, it's always that same mixture of excitement and utter fear.

You know, we didn't want to kill anyone, but we knew that "Star Wars" is a generational tale. It always is. And for it to have some guts and some resonance and true stakes, I don't think that everyone could have come through the story unscathed.

I'm an impatient guy and tend not to like to stay with one thing for a long time. I'll never be able to write as many scripts as I did for "Felicity" or "Alias" ever again. I'm just too impatient these days. I want to get on to the next project.

I'm literally open to any medium that will have me.

It's cool to be a nerd. There's a general understanding that smartphones didn't come from jocks. The digital age was foreseen by a group of short-sleeved, buttoned-down, white-shirted guys and their female equivalents designing the very stuff that's now ubiquitous.

Well, when Kathy Kennedy, who is the president of Lucasfilm, came to me to ask if I'd be interested in working on this "Star Wars" movie, we talked about a young woman at the center of the story from the outset. And it was something that was always an important part of this movie.

I feel like obviously the standard for what TV looks like changes all the time.

I'd love to do a movie where the monster is human, where the issue is not otherworldly, or horror or science fiction.

I was never really a comic-book fanatic.

I love recording music.

I try to work on shows that I would want to watch.

I guess the idea of not wanting to choose to direct a film, for which I've not read a script. It's a tough decision to make without seeing any pages. That's not to say that I don't have all the faith in the world in the spectacular writers.

I love working with the right actor, and if the right actor happens to be unknown, that should be allowed, too, I think.

I hope to make movies that are so small they don't need to make anything to be profitable.

I don't think anyone wants a movie on time that's not worth your time.

I have nothing against 3-D in theory. But I've also never run to the movies because something's in 3-D.

Stories in which the destruction of society occurs are explorations of social fears and issues that filmmakers, novelists, playwrights, painters have been examining for a long time.

I think when you're 10 years old, it's too much to see something with the threat of death in every episode. Kids are better left naive about certain things.

I feel blessed that I get to be part of entertaining people in any capacity.

Withholding things in a story is no good if you aren't building to something substantial. It becomes foreplay without the main event, and no one wants that.

With three kids you are just trying to survive. You can't be fastidious.

Whenever you're playing sports with people who are better than you are, it makes you rise to the occasion.

Whenever I've directed something, there's this feeling of demand and focus that I like.

I feel like the beauty of this age of filmmaking is that there are more tools at your disposal, but it doesn’t mean that any of these new tools are automatically the right tools. And there are a lot of situations where we went very much old school and in fact used CG more to remove things than to add things.

It's a leap of faith doing any serialised storytelling.

I do feel like no matter what you're doing, whether it's music or writing a play or a poem or drawing a picture or painting something, that you're speaking to what is it you want to express, what is it you want to see.

I'm working on the Star Wars script today and the people in my office have covered up all my windows with black paper. I guess they wanted to make sure no one could see what I was doing. It seems rather extreme.

I will say that what’s been funny is, since the lightsaber’s come out, I cannot tell you how many contradictory emails I have received from people who have both defended it with unbelievably detailed graphicsI’ve gotten things that are nuts, and I’ve gotten people who’ve shown how it’ll kill you and how it doesn’t make any sense. It’s been the funniest thing to see the arguments that have developed over this thing.

I do think there's something about the digital age that is increasingly dehumanising us. We're in this very weird place where we're being pulled into experiences that aren't really experiences at all.

I love stories where the impossible appears believable, plausible and real. Maybe it's silly, but it's one of the reasons Michael Crichton's writing always appealed to me: he took outlandish ideas and made them seem completely within the realm of possibility. I remember reading "Jurassic Park" and feeling like: "Oh, yeah -- no, that's totally happening right now. They're bringing back dinosaurs!

I'm actually a huge fan of digital as well. I appreciate how that technology opens the doors for filmmakers who never had access to that level of quality before. However, I do think film itself sets the standard for quality. You can talk about range, light, sensitive, resolution -- there's something about film that is undeniably beautiful, undeniably organic and natural and real.

On movies like Star Trek and Star Wars, you have so much that will be created or extended digitally, and it's a slippery slope where you can get lost in a world of synthetic.

Approaching any movie with a three in the title you know you are not going to get a political polemic. You are not going to get some sort of political statement or ultra-deep message.

I remember being taught to read at a very early age. Like creepy young. I remember being in the crib, reading. My parents were very impressed. My reading speed, comprehension and overall ability has remained at that level ever since.

Every hour that you spend doing something, even if you love it more than anything, you're not with your family. Every project that you take on, that's another choice.

I'm not as optimistic as Gene Roddenberry was. I fall somewhere in the middle. But as a romantic, I like to think things are going to get bigger rather than worse.

If you watch the first [Star Wars] movie, you don't actually know exactly what the Empire is trying to do. They're going to rule by fear -- but you don't know what their endgame is. You don't know what Leia is princess of. You don't yet understand who Jabba the Hutt is, even though there is a reference to him. You don't know that Vader is Luke's father, Leia is his sister -- but the possibility is all there. The beauty of that movie was that it was an unfamiliar world, and yet you wanted to see it expand and to see where it went.

Don't sell your story, just tell your story.

It is an incredible thing to see how many crazy things get thrown out that people then often write commentaries about how happy they are or how disappointed they are about something that's completely false. But, it's a lot of noise, frankly.

I was more of a Star Wars kid, actually. I always thought Star Trek was a lot of talk, and it felt a little self-important. It was hard for me to get into it.

The noise you hear after people see something you do--whether it's a TV show or a movie--that always makes you see that thing slightly differently. Without question. The ability of a television series to make adjustments is something you've got to take advantage of. And test-screening a movie can be helpful too. But the part that can be dangerous is when you take those notes as gospel, instead of taking them with a grain of salt. The key is to use the response as one of the tools in your box, as opposed to using it to determine what you do.

I have no style. There are certain people who just have a visual sense that defines their work. You could probably watch 30 seconds of anything they do and you'll know exactly who directed it. I don't have that skill.

It's not often that I read about actors that I'm going to be meeting. I get to read articles about actors who were going to come in, so I get to see someone and say, "Oh, I read that I was going to see you. It's very nice to see you."

The Internet now provides an immediate and very clear consensus of what it is that the audience is experiencing. It's something that you should never let lead you, and yet at the same time, you should never ignore it.

I mean, my dad's a television producer, and I knew I could get a job as an assistant or a reader with one of his friends, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.