John Huston Quotations

I guess I decided I wasn't ready to give up on the game yet. So I just decided the best way to go about getting myself back into a better position would be to just start playing every week.

Hollywood has always been a cage... a cage to catch our dreams.

I was in such a bad position probably a couple of months ago I just decided to start playing every week. I wanted to see if I could kind of get some sort of a feel for the game back.... I've started playing a little better.

Other than one putt, I made just about every putt that I should have made today,

I think if I had more time or if I were young, working with them would be a great thing,

I wasn't there long enough to hear them say what they were.

I've played pretty solid this week. I've made a lot of putts and my short game's been pretty good,

After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor.

It was really no big deal then, and still isn't to me. I think the whole problem with it is they made a really big deal of it after I left. To me, it was already done. I was at home. I don't really even remember it.

It's not color, it's like pouring 40 tablespoons of sugar water over a roast.

If I would have just selected the few tournaments to play at the end of the year or whatever, I probably wouldn't have had a very good chance of getting into the top 125.

I'm not that worried about the whole top 125 thing, but it certainly would be nice to finish strong and get up in there, ... I played so poorly at the start of the year. I'm playing better, just not putting well. It makes it kind of hard to compete.

I like when scoring conditions are good and the weather's good. I think you just kind of tee off and see what the course gives you, hopefully take advantage of it.

I like when scoring conditions are good and the weather's good,

I hit the ball out there far enough to compete, but you've got to putt, ... I've missed so many short putts. That was always the strength of my game. It kills any kind of momentum you might have. I never used to miss any short birdie putts. I always converted the ones I should have made. I don't do that any more. It wears on you mentally.

Hopefully. It hasn't been a very good year.

I decided I would rather, if I could, be in a position to pick the tournaments I wanted to play in,

I could either just kind of halfway give up for the year, or start playing every week and try to get myself back into a decent position. I really just decided I wasn't ready to give up on the game yet, so I just decided the best way to go about getting myself back into a better position would be to just start playing every week.

And for whatever reason, I just don't putt like I used to. I think everything feeds off of that. You make some putts, all of a sudden, your swing starts feeling better.

There is a wilful lemming-like persistance in remaking past successes time after time. They can't make them as good as they are in our memories, but they go on doing them and each time it's a disaster. Why don't we remake some of our bad pictures - I'd love another shot at 'Roots of Heaven' - and make them good?

Marilyn was one step from oblivion when I directed her in The Asphalt Jungle. I remember she impressed me more off the screen than on…there was something touching and appealing about her.

She went right down into her own personal experience for everything, reached down and pulled something out of herself that was unique and extraordinary. She had no techniques. It was all the truth, it was only Marilyn. But it was Marilyn, plus. She found things, found things about womankind in herself.

I am more lost in wonder than ever.

You're good, you're real good.

Whenever something is convenient or was modified after 1970, you probably shouldn't use it as root.

I don't approve of censorship. I like the French theatre idea. Put on the play, and if the audience doesn't care for it, or feels offended by it, they rip up the seats.

Even Michelangelo on his deathbed thought he'd done nothing to ennoble art. He wanted to destroy his work-the Pieta! And this from the greatest artist who ever lived. Of course I am not comparing my work to Michelangelo's. But this eternal dissatisfaction of the artist is what I was talking about.

What you try to become is a bringer of magic, for magic and the truth are closely allied and movies are sheer magic ... when they work, it's, well, it's glorious.

I would spend more time with my children. I would make my money before spending it. I would learn the joys of wine instead of hard liquor. I would not smoke cigarettes when I had pneumonia. I would not marry a fifth time.

I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.

Crime is a left- handed form of human endeavor.

Critics have never been able to discover a unifying theme in my films. For thatmatter, neither have I.

You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize you are only part of a great nameless procession.

For sheer strength of character, I wouldn't have dared to cross swords with Callas. I would rather have gone six rounds with Jack Dempsey.

Once you have found the right shot to introduce the scene-written your first declarative sentence-then the rest flows. You've found the key to the whole scene.

When you make motion pictures, each picture is a life unto itself. When you finish and the picture is over, there's an understanding, a realization that we'll never be assembled this way again. That these relationships are severed forever and ever. And each of these films is a little life.

Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it.

I relieve myself from the rigours of directing by casting the movie correctly.

Each picture with its particular environment and unique personal relationships is a world unto itself - separate and distinct. Picture makers lead dozens of lives - a life for each picture. And, by the same token, they perish a little when each picture is finished and that world comes to an end. In this respect it is a melancholy occupation.

What to do when inspiration doesn't come; be careful not to spook, get the wind up, force things into position. You must wait around until the idea comes.

Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place they're capable of anything.

A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.

A work of art doesn't dare you to realize it. It germinates and gestates by itself.

Hollywood has always been a cage...a cage to catch our dreams

I Don't Try to Guess What a Million People Will Like. It's Hard Enough to Know What I Like.

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world.