For me, the most interesting people are ones who often work against their best interests. Bad choices. They go in directions where you go, 'No no no nooo!' You push away someone who is trying to love you, you hurt someone who's trying to get your trust, or you love someone you shouldn't.
AUTHOR QUOTES
Quotes by Paul Haggis
Explore 25 verified and sourced quotes attributed to Paul Haggis. Open any quote for its dedicated page, source details and related topics.
EXPLORE BY TOPIC
Selected quotes by Paul Haggis
I don't think it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre.
I am really drawn to damaged characters, and I have a lot of sympathy for them. Making those complicated characters empathetic is something to strive for. It's too easy to create a good guy or a good girl.
I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me.
We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment.
We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'.
I don't know if 'Crash' is a good movie or not because I didn't set out to make a movie. Really, what I wanted to do is more of a social experiment.
You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer.
Film is an emotional medium; it's not a logical medium. It's not an intellectual medium, so every decision you make as a filmmaker and an actor has to be emotional in some way, even in the rejection of logic.
I have never pretended to be the best Scientologist, but I openly and vigorously defended the church whenever it was criticized, as I railed against the kind of intolerance that I believed was directed against it. I had my disagreements, but I dealt with them internally.
I moved to Hollywood when I was 22. I was married. I had a kid right away. And I had worked as a furniture mover amongst various other jobs, and I'd work eight, ten hours a day to support my family - and I'd come home and write for two hours a night or two and a half, or three hours a night.
In Scientology, in the Ethics Conditions, as you go down from Normal through Doubt, then you get to Enemy, and, finally, near the bottom, there is Treason.
I miss my mother very, very much.
As a general rule, I don't plan to travel with my Oscars, but we may have to make an exception.
We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets.
The wonderful thing about Clint is you can never second guess how he is going to react to anything.
Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly.
I just asked myself, what piece of that man's soul did he just chew off and swallow to get next week's assignment? You know, just to live, just to work as an artist, or to feed the family?
I was trying to talk about where we are right now as a society, and talk about the fear we all live in, and certainly since 9-11, how it's affected us and the world.
As artists, we have to be brave. If we aren't brave, we aren't artists.
Even a modicum of celebrity is hard to deal with. You see it with actors and directors all the time.
Even in a comedy, you have to make people feel. You have to put your hand inside their soul and twist out their heart.
Every 10 years, I know less about love and relationships. The smarter I get, the less I know.
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.
More quotes attributed to Paul Haggis are available across the Mayalines library.
Related author collections
Explore authors represented in the same topics.