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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Paul Haggis

Know

Credit

I Can

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

" Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly. "

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

Paul Haggis

React

Wonderful

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

Paul Haggis

Trouble

Answers

" 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. "

Paul Haggis

Good

Know

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" As artists, we have to be brave. If we aren't brave, we aren't artists. "

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

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

" You can't plan for people to like your movies. I knew that people were not going to run in droves to the theater for the 'In the Valley of Elah.' I knew they might not want to see it, but I still had to the movie; I felt very strongly about it. Wanting to keep telling a good story is what you want to do, a compelling story. "

" 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. "

" I don't think I'm against all wars, but you'd have to have a damn good reason to send your son or daughter to fight, or to go yourself. So often, we are lied to and manipulated by our governments for their own very cynical reasons. "

" 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. "

" 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 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? "

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

Paul Haggis

Institutions

Deeply

" 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. "

" I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society. "

" Even a modicum of celebrity is hard to deal with. You see it with actors and directors all the time. "

" 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 made a very good living as a bad writer. I wrote a lot of comedies, 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' while all my friends were doing the good shows, like 'Cheers,' but I loved it because I got to be a working writer in Hollywood. "

" 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. "