James Cameron

“I think people had somehow gotten the sense that we have explored everything, when that isn't the case. We so know so little about the ocean, and so much of it is being destroyed.”

“I was always fascinated by engineering. Maybe it was an attempt maybe to get my father's respect or interest, or maybe it was just a genetic love of technology, but I was always trying to build things.”

“I don't use film cameras. I don't do visual effects the same way. We don't use miniature models; it's all CG now, creating worlds in CG. It's a completely different toolset. But the rules of storytelling are the same.”

“I've tried not to get sucked into the Hollywood hierarchy system. Personally, I don't like it when people are deferential to me because I'm an established filmmaker. It's a blue-collar sensibility.”

“Writing a screenplay, for me, is like juggling. It's like, how many balls can you get in the air at once? All those ideas have to float out there to a certain point, and then they'll crystallize into a pattern.”

“I actually started as a model builder and quickly progressed into production design, which made sense because I could draw and paint. But I kept watching that guy over there who was moving the actors around and setting up the shots.”

“The films that influenced me were so disparate that there's almost no pattern.”

“I love short trips to New York; to me it is the finest three-day town on earth.”

“You have to not listen to the nay sayers because there will be many and often they'll be much more qualified than you and cause you to sort of doubt yourself.”

“Any direct experience that I have with indigenous peoples and their plights may feed into the nature of the story I choose to tell. In fact, it almost certainly will.”

“עם הקרנה תלת־ממדית דיגיטלית, ניכנס לעידן קולנועי חדש. הקהל יראה משהו שמעולם לא היה אפשרי מבחינה טכנית.”

“אני לא מסתכל על תסריטים. אני פשוט כותב אותם.”

“המפתח לסרט המשך הוא לעמוד בציפיות הקהל ועם זאת להיות מפתיע.”

“תעשיית הקולנוע עוסקת בלהגיד 'לא' לאנשים, ומטבע הדברים אי אפשר לקבל 'לא' כתשובה.”

“הקסם לא בא מתוך מוחו של הבמאי, הוא בא מתוך הלב של השחקנים.”

“I'm a storyteller; that's what exploration really is all about. Going to places where others haven't been and returning to tell a story they haven't heard before.”

“I mean, you have to be able - you have to have made the commitment within yourself to do whatever it takes to get the job done and to try to inspire other people to do it, because obviously the first rule is you can't do it by yourself.”

“Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own.”

“Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee.”

“It took me a long time to realize that you have to have a bit of an interlanguage with actors. You have to give them something that they can act with.”