Ted Demme's Quotes

But my humble opinion is, I'm not quite sure where I stand on the legalization of drugs - though, if tequila is legal, pot should probably be legal.

The older I get the more I realize there's no real good guys or real bad guys, and I'm curious about how the good guys got good and how the bad guys got bad.

I was influenced by European movies, old Fellini, old Kurosawa - any sort of foreign film.

I'm at Miramax now, where I've actually been treated like a Prince.

The thing that's great about those guys at Miramax is the Weinstein brothers. They are the two funniest guys I've ever met in my life.

There are a lot of films that are drug dramas, and we didn't want to tell Scarface again.

And then we watched an amazing number of movies from the late '60s and '70s, which is my favorite time, and we studied their camera movements, their stocks, the way they lit stuff, the colors they used.

I felt that as long as we were being honest, and that we didn't bend the truth to accomplish another goal, to be entertaining or to be a happy ending, I was confident that we'd be able to tell the story the way it happened.

I think, on a larger note, that filmmakers and studios should start to tuck it in a little bit, because films wouldn't have the pressure they have if the word wasn't out about how expensive they were.

I tried to stick to my game plan, which was always being aware of what my A story was - the love story between a father and his son, and that son and his daughter.

That's why I'm really trying to produce my own stuff. This film was so good, because I produced it myself, and developed it, and made it with New Line, which is a smaller studio, so I was in control of a lot of stuff that I wasn't in control of for my other films.

What I think happens today is that a lot of filmmakers look at other films that are retro pieces, like L.A. Confidential, and say, oh, that's period. We didn't want to do the stereotypical stuff.

You know, I think everything I do cinematically for the rest of my life will probably have some direct route back to Jonathan. But I love him to death. He's like my best friend and my big brother.

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.

Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.

All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.

As a vessel is known by the sound, whether it be cracked or not; so men are proved, by their speeches, whether they be wise or foolish.

I am a citizen of the world.

No man who is not willing to help himself has any right to apply to his friends, or to the gods.

The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves.

What we wish, that we readily believe.

You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit.

Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.

Close alliances with despots are never safe for free states.

Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states.