A biography for Paul Haggishasn’t been written yet.
“Even in a comedy, you have to make people feel. You have to put your hand inside their soul and twist out their heart.”
“I thought 'The King's Speech' was great.”
“I just figure if you have a modicum of celebrity, you need to use it, and you need to use it for more things than just promoting yourself or your film or your image or your product.”
“As artists, we have to be brave. If we aren't brave, we aren't artists.”
“A lot of films made me love the movies, everything from Hitchcock to Godard. But the ones that really grabbed me were Costa-Gavras's films like 'Z' and 'State of Siege.'”
“I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me.”
“I don't pay much attention to the press. My films always get good reviews and bad reviews. I just try to make the best film I can.”
“I made a very good living as a bad writer. I wrote a lot of comedies, 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' while all my friends were doing the good shows, like 'Cheers,' but I loved it because I got to be a working writer in Hollywood.”
“We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets.”
“I don't think I'm against all wars, but you'd have to have a damn good reason to send your son or daughter to fight, or to go yourself. So often, we are lied to and manipulated by our governments for their own very cynical reasons.”
“When I discovered European filmmakers, it affected me so deeply. It redefined what cinema could be. I mean, 'Blow-Up' ends with a dead body and mimes playing tennis. What?”
“I try not to think of actors as I'm writing because I think you do them a disservice by writing for things they've already done.”
“Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly.”
“My kids paid the price for my career. We can say it's for our family, but it almost never is. It's about us. It's just some of us can pretend better than others.”