John Ford Quotes
I love making pictures but I don`t like talking about them.
Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it`s not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people`s eyes.
It is easier to get an actor to be a cowboy than to get a cowboy to be an actor.
It`s no use talking to me about art, I make pictures to pay the rent.
I didn`t show up at the ceremony to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken drunk.
For a director there are commercial rules that it is necessary to obey. In our profession, an artistic failure is nothing; a commercial failure is a sentence. The secret is to make films that please the public and also allow the director to reveal his personality.
(On John Wayne) Duke is the best actor in Hollywood.
As a beauty, Dolores del Rio is in a class with (Greta Garbo). Then she opens her mouth and becomes Minnie Mouse.
My name is John Ford and I make Westerns.
(on Native American Indians) We`ve treated them badly, it`s a blot on our shield; we`ve robbed, cheated, murdered and massacred them, but they kill one white man and God, out come the troops.
Electronics is clearly the winner of the day.
(Darryl F. Zanuck on The Grapes of Wrath (1940)) It`s a good picture. It`s meaty and down to earth. But I think it needs a happier ending.
I am... a mushroom; On whom the dew of heaven drops now and then.
How did I get to Hollywood? By train.
You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.
(in 1967) I am a liberal Democrat and a rebel.
They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings.
Revenge proves its own executioner.
Delay in vengeance gives a heavier blow
