Rod Lurie

“I'm sure when 'Midnight Cowboy' came out, it took a couple of minutes to get used to the voice and the look of Dustin Hoffman, or to even recognize that it was Dustin Hoffman.”

“Whenever you make a movie, when it's done, as a filmmaker, you never sit there and say, 'Boy, I really got that right.' It's, 'Where did I screw up?'”

“I was just nine years old when 'Straw Dogs' came out, so I can't really speak to the women of the time, but I can tell you that the women of 2011 are not put-upon, and they're not victims.”

“We need to get young people involved in the running of this country.”

“I have to admit that all of us creatively involved with 'Commander' absolutely intended to put the term 'Madam President' into the zeitgeist. I can't deny it.”

“I promise that if there was no Hillary Clinton, there would still be a 'Commander in Chief' - I want to have a hit show that people enjoy, and really, that's it.”

“My mom is an exceptionally wise and kind person.”

“I grew up during Watergate. I was enamored of the study of that.”

“There are a lot of westerns that deal with people standing up for their principles, and that is the predominant theme that has been in my films.”

“I grew up in the home of a political cartoonist, so I was a junkie for politics.”

“There's a difference between 'political films' and 'films about Iraq.'”

“I don't know a nicer guy in the world than Alan Alda.”

“Now, I don't know about my peers, but I get nervous - okay, I genuinely freak out - when an actor starts trying on a Southern accent. That's for Brits trying to find the easiest way to sound American.”

“Somebody - and I'm going to guess it was Hitchcock - once said that everyone has their reasons. If you remember that, as a writer, you'll write better than average villains.”

“In my mind, I'm no longer daunted by the idea of a remake. In fact, I now look at it as a genre unto itself - so long as you make it your own.”

“'Commander in Chief' became a show not about why we should have a woman president but why we should not have a woman president.”

“I can be accused of being acerbic as a critic and writer.”

“We are viewed by the world as a quasi-racist state in which we allow natural disasters to obliterate our minority community, in which our penal system is designed to treat blacks unfairly, and in which we let the medical and educational systems in our ghettos fester to the level of some third-world countries.”

“I met Joan Allen at an L.A. Film Critics Awards' dinner, and I said, 'I want to write a movie for you.'”

“The fight to get a shield law barring the government from being able to jail journalists is itself a non-partisan battle.”