Sydney Pollack Thinking Quotations

I'm not trying to push my political agenda on anybody. I'll do that like any other citizen by giving money to a party or candidate I believe in. I don't mind going out and endorsing somebody I believe in. But when we're talking about my films, I don't think my politics should have anything to do with it.

There's a religious basis to their [Bush and Chaney] kind of conservatism. It's rooted in a kind of fundamentalism. I'm afraid of that. I don't like that idea. I think all extremism is suspect.

I tend to be what I would call more progressive than conservative, but I think either extreme is excessive.

Hollywood was set up by a bunch of businessmen. They do not see their job as being philanthropists. I don't think it's a contradiction in terms to attempt to be a good businessman and to also be liberal.

By that I mean, I think that it is true that politics and political heroes have to satisfy our need to be greater than mortal in some way, and that's led them into creating illusions, sound bites, focus groups that tell you what to do.

There isn't any question that Hollywood is profit driven. Anybody that thinks it isn't is a fool. It's a business. Hollywood was never philanthropy. The only purpose it had was making money; the only purpose it still has is to make money.

I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business.

I didn't grow up thinking of movies as film, or art, but as movies, something to do on a Saturday afternoon.