James Cameron

James Cameron: I couldn't see myself as a future film director. In fact, there was a definite feeling on my part that those people were somehow born into it, almost like a caste system. Little kids from a small town in Canada didn't get to direct movies.

James Cameron: I was petrified at the start of "Terminator". First of all, I was working with a star, at least I thought of him as a star at the time. Arnold came out of it even more a star.

James Cameron: (about "The Terminator") That was the purest experience, even though it was the cheapest one and the cheesiest looking one.

James Cameron: (about his decision to turn down doing the movie) Basically because I had told the story. To make Terminator 3 was to make a 3.

James: (message to aspiring directors) I tell them that no two people will ever do it the same way, and there is nothing I can say that will help you. Whatever your talents are, whatever your strengths and weaknesses, you have to find the path that's going to work for you.

James: (on his achievements) I think chance is not a big factor in the long run. It can be a huge factor in the short run, being at the right place at the right time. But even with that chance, the critical factor is being able to recognize a true opportunity and seize it the moment it presents itself, and not wait and over think it, because it will pass.

James: (on the future of film, in an interview on April 2007) I can imagine the dense fantasy worlds I like to create for movies having an equal or greater life in a world of interactive play, authored by others, in a partnership. Of course, add massive multiplayer capability to this, and people will never leave their homes.

James: (on the filmmaking technology Performance Capture) I expect that more filmmakers will embrace the technique and apply it to different types of scenarios. For the creation of fantasy and science-fiction characters, Perfcap will largely replace makeup and prosthetics.

James: (on '2001: A Space Odyssey') As soon as I saw that, I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker. It hit me on a lot of different levels. I just couldn't figure out how he did all that stuff, and I just had to learn.

James: The film industry is about saying 'no' to people, and inherently you cannot take 'no' for an answer.

James: (on his transformation and obsession with filmmaking after dropping out of college) I went from being a bum who liked to smoke dope and hang out by the river drinking beer and race around in a fast junk-heap cars to this completely obsessed maniac.

James: Everyone around me had basically said, 'You stink. You suck. You don't know what you're doing.'

James: Filmmaking is not about sprockets. It's about ideas, it's about images, it's about imagination, and it's about storytelling.

James: You know, in the film making business no one ever gives you anything.

James: A director's job is to make something happen and it doesn't happen by itself. So you wheedle, you cajole, you flatter people, you tell them what needs to be done. And if you don't bring a passion and an intensity to it, you shouldn't be doing it.

James: I don't look at scripts. I just write them.

James: People call me a perfectionist, but I'm not. I'm a rightist. I do something until it's right, and then I move on to the next thing.