Jonathan Demme Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I just get really defensive as soon as anyone comes near my personal life. I made a decision early on that it's strictly off-limits. No exceptions.
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I had done some TV movies that were great experiences but, no, I wasn't looking to do a series.
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The business part of it can be very vexing. You always have to keep certain metrics and everything. Because all I can do is make a good show.
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All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.
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I'm an old-fashioned girl, and I didn't believe in living with people, so I guess I married for the wrong reasons at times.
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Anytime you do something in this arena, whether it's public records or ethics, it's not like throwing a stone in a quiet pond. It's like throwing a boulder.
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Discipline is wisdom and vice versa.
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It doesn't matter if people perceive me as being a little strange. I think overall, even when I am on stage, when people see me, I am setting an example.
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That's why I'm really trying to produce my own stuff. This film was so good, because I produced it myself, and developed it, and made it with New Line, which is a smaller studio, so I was in control of a lot of stuff that I wasn't in control of for my other films.
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Dave thought he was bigger than Van Halen the band. So there was this catfight going on for 10 years.
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I never really did any disco dancing.
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When kids are met with the highest expectations and given the extra supports they need, they can be as motivated as kids anywhere.
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When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.
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I think the tone of the show has certainly changed over the years, because it's really, really hard to do something different when you have a show going on as long as this has.
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I think Barack Obama was born into a home not just to a white woman and white grandparents, but a white woman and white grandparents who shockingly told him it was okay that he was black and that he should not be ashamed of it and that he should, in fact, be proud of it.
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That's the mantra I use when the team tells me something is too complicated. People keep saying, 'We need more prioritization.' I say, 'Guys, what you want is less work. And that is not going to happen.'
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I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.
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You don't master your fear. You're not able to say, 'I'm not going to be scared.' But what you can do is say, 'OK, I'm very very scared, but I have to do this and this and this.'
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There is only one inborn erroneous notion ... that we exist in order to be happy ... So long as we persist in this inborn error ... the world seems to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of maintaining a happy existence ... hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of ... disappointment.
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I believe anybody who is not afraid to fail is a winner.
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Bad leadership during the past years has cast on our Party the shadow of great and grave burdens.
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I want to crush everyone. I want to outsmart everyone.
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Art is not supposed to change the world, to change practical things, but to change perceptions. Art can change the way we see the world. Art can create an analogy.
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If you're doing a music film, you've got to be singing about something.
