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" A lot of films made me love the movies, everything from Hitchcock to Godard. But the ones that really grabbed me were Costa-Gavras's films like 'Z' and 'State of Siege.' "

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" The worst thing you can do to a filmmaker is to walk out of his film and go, 'That was a nice movie.' But if you can cause people to walk out and then argue about the film on the sidewalk... I think we're all seeking dissension, and we love to affect an audience. "

Paul Haggis

Love

You

Walk

" As a general rule, I don't plan to travel with my Oscars, but we may have to make an exception. "

" There's nothing more painful than writing. "

Paul Haggis

Than

Painful

" My kids paid the price for my career. We can say it's for our family, but it almost never is. It's about us. It's just some of us can pretend better than others. "

" I don't know how much credit I can take for 'Walker, Texas Ranger,' because I only worked on it for three weeks. I re-wrote the pilot, and then my name was on it forever. "

" 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. "

Paul Haggis

Writing

Character

" I like it when an actor is secure enough to ask questions, and the director is secure enough not to be threatened by that. "

" I wrote an episode for 'thirtysomething,' and a producer said, 'That's really good, but what is it about? What does it say about you? What questions are you asking yourself?' I had never thought about that. This comment changed who I was, because it made me look at my own soul, the dark corners in my soul, and accept that dark side. "

" The wonderful thing about Clint is you can never second guess how he is going to react to anything. "

Paul Haggis

React

Wonderful

" In 'The Next Three Days,' even though it was a prison breakout movie, I was asking myself, 'What would I do? How far would I go for the woman I loved? How far would I go, and what would I do when the person then told me that they were guilty? Could I still believe in them?' So it was very personal. "

" I just love actors, and I've always loved actors. I empathize with their job. Everyone thinks it's easy, and it ain't. To be that vulnerable and brave on camera is tough. The more they reveal themselves, the more we love them, but there's a lot of truth in what they're showing. "

" The great majority of Scientologists I know are good people who are genuinely interested in improving conditions on this planet and helping others. "

" All my work is partly biographical. I mean, 'Crash' was absolutely that, absolutely. But you just wouldn't recognize me in most of those characters. But I was in every single one of those characters in 'Crash,' because those were all fears that I had felt. Things that I had thought in my deepest, darkest heart. "

Paul Haggis

Heart

Thought

" 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. "

" We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'. "

" I'm a filmmaker, and I was most influenced by Hitchcock's films. How he could plant such deep enriched characters and then make us care both about the antagonist and protagonist was masterful. "

Paul Haggis

Care

" I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me. "

Paul Haggis

Trouble

Answers

" You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer. "

" I miss my mother very, very much. "

" I just figure if you have a modicum of celebrity, you need to use it, and you need to use it for more things than just promoting yourself or your film or your image or your product. "

" I have so many questions about love. How do you win at it? Especially if you're in a relationship with an impossible person? What if you believe in someone who's completely untrustworthy, who at their core can't even believe in themselves? "

" Even in a comedy, you have to make people feel. You have to put your hand inside their soul and twist out their heart. "

" My one guiding rule for success in the film world would be, be careful of your friends. "

" I'm a deeply broken person, and broken institutions fascinate me. "

Paul Haggis

Institutions

Deeply

" I'm such an antsy type of person. I can't write in a room without other people around. I write in coffee shops. "

" We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets. "

" 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. "

" I try not to think of actors as I'm writing because I think you do them a disservice by writing for things they've already done. "

" 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 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. "