Gary Ross Quotes

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Gary Ross

Profession : Actor

Birth : November 3, 1956

'Dr. Strangelove' was and is one of my favorite movies ever, and I just can't believe they actually blew up the world after that.

Gary Ross

It's interesting - in 'Fail Safe,' as well, they didn't back off. We were raised with kind of this spectrum of that Armageddon and lived under it, so those were probably the films. 'Fail Safe' sort of haunted me.

Gary Ross

Despite recent speculation in the media, and after difficult but sincere consideration, I have decided not to direct 'Catching Fire.' As a writer and a director, I simply don't have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make, because of the fixed and tight production schedule.

Gary Ross

Why is every great children's story about a journey? Maybe that's because we are always on one.

Gary Ross

Most modern science fiction went to school on 'Dune.' Even 'Harry Potter' with its 'boy protagonist who has not yet grown into his destiny' shares a common theme. When I read it for the first time, I felt like I had learned another language, mastered a new culture, adopted a new religion.

Gary Ross

I mean, the wonderful thing about writing a book is that you're getting a finished product at the end of the day. You're communicating directly with the reader.

Gary Ross

There's something so wonderful about writing in rhyme where it isn't just the meaning of the words, it's the music to the words and the shape and the sound.

Gary Ross

There's nothing I'd rather do than sort of, you know, sit at my computer and rhyme.

Gary Ross

You can't tell your kids to read if you're just watching television. They have to see you read. And in that respect, I think it's important to walk the walk. It's a wonderful shared time.

Gary Ross

As time goes by the memories of sitting on the edge of a bed and reading aloud with your kid are going to be very meaningful in your own mental scrapbook.

Gary Ross

If there's a 13- or 14-year old kid who is yearning for something beyond the social forces in his own world, in his own neighborhood, the library is the only place where he can go to find that. It was exciting and thrilling to me all the time I worked in the library. It's such a force for social good and it can do so much.

Gary Ross

People who want to be a star get their teeth capped. People who want to be an actor get to work.

Gary Ross

Obviously I love 'The Godfather' movies. I think they're phenomenal.

Gary Ross

Any director, if you really ask them, will tell you that the toughest thing to do is like a dinner table or a dialogue scene, because you need to keep that electricity maintained throughout the course of the film.

Gary Ross

The great seats of power tend to be wide and open, not vertical and soaring. Red Square, Tiananmen Square, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin - all massive but with large open spaces that project an image of might.

Gary Ross

Really, each era has its own false nostalgia. We all put a picket fence up around something. For my generation it was the '50s, and for other generations it will be something else. Change is scary for everyone, as is complexity, contradiction, and an uncertain future.

Gary Ross

In a complex and troubling world, who wouldn't want to simplify? Everybody does. Everybody wants to simplify and put up a picket fence.

Gary Ross

My '50s were different than other people's '50s. The myth didn't permeate our world, 'Donna Reed' and all that. I longed for that, I wanted to be like other normal families on TV.

Gary Ross

'Pleasantville' seems tonally ambitious, but it can handle a wide breadth of tone because it's so fanciful.

Gary Ross

I tend to love actors. I was trained as an actor first so I'm drawn to actors.

Gary Ross