John Hughes Quotations

At the time I came along, Hollywoods idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!

I used to judge the quality of music by whether I could make a 90-minute cassette and not repeat any artists.

Many filmmakers portray teenagers as immoral and ignorant, with pursuits that are pretty base... But I haven't found that to be the case. I listen to kids. I respect them... Some of them are as bright as any of the adults I've met.

I happen to go for the simplest, most ordinary things. The extraordinary doesn't interest me. I'm not interested in psychotics. I'm interested in the person you don't expect to have a story. I like Everyman.

When I did 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', I had the idea on Monday and the following Tuesday it was in budget at Paramount. I couldn't walk.

Why watch someone kissing when people really close their eyes when they kiss?

I so desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away.

What a director should be doing is making it appear as though there was no script.

It's like being at the kids' table at Thanksgiving - you can put your elbows on it, you don't have to talk politics... no matter how old I get, there's always a part of me that's sitting there.

I don't want to be too cool. You get so caught up with whether you're doing it right.

People forget that when you’re 16, you’re probably more serious than you’ll ever be again. You think seriously about the big questions.

I don't think of kids as a lower form of the human species.

A geek is a guy who has everything going for him but he's just too young. He's got the software but he doesn't have the hardware yet.

To have a song work for the movie, it can't just be written apart and shoved in. It's got to come out of the action. It's got to talk about the characters, not the story: it has to augment that action.

The best sounds a kid will get is in a movie theater, with huge speakers, turned up loud. I always mix my music really loud. I don't care if you don't hear all the dialogue. The audience are not idiots.

I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, 'cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!

My heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso, because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on.

A nerd will be a nerd all his life.

A nerd will be a nerd all his life. When we did The Nerd Book at National Lampoon, the nerds got picked up as if there were a lot of them at every school - and there aren't. Maybe two. There are many more geeks. A geek is a guy who has everything going for him, but he's just too young. He's got the software, but he doesn't have the hardware yet.

My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the baby boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us.

I was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw 'Doctor Zhivago' every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater.

I'm from Chicago, I live in Chicago and I wanted very much for the music in Chicago to succeed.

When I go to a concert, I can't believe that people pay lots of money to see a band that they obviously like and then they dance the whole time.

I'm a former hippie, so clothes are important to me - your clothes defined you in that period. I guess clothes still defines people. But, I change a lot. I'm in my Brooks Brothers period now.

I stumbled into this business, I didn't train for it. I yelled 'Action!' on my first two movies before the camera was turned on.

If I'm on a roll, and I finish a script at 3:00, I'll start another at 3:02.

The only reason I got into movies was because I had no music talent.

We've seen a technical improvement lately, with the indexes breaking out of the recent downtrend. We think there's going to be an uptrend in the market through the end of the year, although it certainly won't be without hiccups.

When I approach a band, I want to respect them and be respectful of their music. I'm not gonna say, 'Look, you guys are real hot, so we'll stick you in the movie, and we'll get it in all these stores and all these stations.' That isn't right.

My early prose style - this is so embarrassing - was sort of a suburban, Presbyterian knockoff of Woody Allen.

My advice would be to be careful, to tread slowly here. A lot of what is rallying is the beaten-down tech stocks.

I don't consider myself qualified to do a movie about international intrigue - I seldom leave the country.

I think the action we're seeing is constructive. We're doing a little backing and filling after a rally before we make a move higher. You're also hitting against some key technical levels here, ... There's not a huge rally building now, but we've seen a little pattern in the past few weeks of rally, scale back, and then continue, and we may see that again.

I was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw Doctor Zhivago every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater.

We became very complacent that technology was going to go up for ever,

The expectation is that Intel won't say anything good, so if they say something that's at least OK, I think you could see a little rally off of that,

(Cregg) is the type of player and the style of player we want to attract at our club.

I usually listen to surf music, not much instrumental music, and when I was younger I listened to jazz.

The buying is broad-based, and the movement in some of these stocks is significant, particularly for technology, ... I think we're making some good progress today. It could mean a change in tone.

This is an example of the resiliency of the market, of what has driven stocks higher for months. You've got PPI, GE, not so great, but they find a positive angle and take the market up,

There was a lot of pessimism at the end of the year and rightly so. So yesterday was a pleasant surprise. But after that kind of day, if we're down 20 or 50 points (on the Dow) today, I'm not worried. What you want to see over the next few days and weeks is generally a continuation of that positive trend on better volume.

It's arguable whether a hit song is gonna add to the business a film does. There are plenty of films that didn't do any business and sold a million albums.

It's been about ten years since I've worked with actors who knew their lines!

Intel already raised their numbers a few weeks ago, so that won't have a big impact on trade, but the employment number could. It's the missing piece in the recovery, ... If you could get something positive from that number, you could see a stock reaction to the upside, or at least a continuation of what you've been seeing. If it's disappointing, you could see some selling.

I don't think I'm making any great statements, and I certainly don't think I'm making art.

I didn't have this tortured childhood; I liked it.

I'd rather make music if I had the talent.

Maitre D' : I appreciate your understanding. Ferris: Don't think twice. It's understanding that makes it possible for people like us to tolerate a person like yourself.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Those who say 'you only live once' have never read a book.

Most of my characters are romantic rather than sexual. I think that's an essential difference in my pictures. I think they are more accurate in portraying young people as romantic - as wanting a relationship, an understanding with a member of the opposite sex more than just physical sex.

I find that screen kissing wears very thin very quickly.

I like young actors because they're so unspoiled, not like some of those actors who are about half an hour into their fifteen minutes of fame by the time they get to me.

It would be a nice problem to have. It would mean we had reached the final. I'd like to think common sense would prevail and we'd have the use of both of them.

Rock 'n' roll is a young form. People over twenty- five ruin it. This whole censorship thing has come about because old people are playing with a form that is essentially young and rebellious. Do you know how brilliant it was for The Beatles to break up when they did?.

A man's tie should never be louder than his wife.

The outpouring of generosity is overwhelming. People across the Lehigh Valley are moved by the images they are seeing on TV and they want to know how they can help.

Advertising was fairly simple work, and I really just wanted a job where I could sit and write every day and not get fired for it like I had at other jobs, but it was fun.

Fantastic! Right in the middle of that long stretch between Christmas and Spring Break, your coats are getting dirty, everything's dark, dingy - what a great time for a movie!

I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it.

We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.