Paul Haggis Quotes

I don`t think it`s the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre.

Artists need to be outsiders in order to really view what`s going on. That little bit of detachment has been great for me being down here. I look like everyone else; I almost sound like everyone else, except for the odd time I say chesterfield or serviette. But I am different. And I am proud to be a Canadian...

As artists, we have to be brave. If we aren`t brave, we aren`t artists.

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.

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.""

As a general rule, I don`t plan to travel with my Oscars, but we may have to make an exception.

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 just asked myself, what piece of that man`s soul did he just chew off and swallow to get next week`s assignment? You know, just to live, just to work as an artist, or to feed the family?

I miss my mother very, very much.

I agreed to write the pilot because I thought it would just go away, but it became this huge hit and I remember waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning in a cold sweat, dripping wet. I mean, I was drenched. I just pictured my tombstone and it said: `Paul Haggis: Creator of Walker Texas Ranger.` So the impetus for making these movies is really just to wipe that image from my mind. (on his decision to move from television to films like Crash)

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

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

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

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

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

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."