Best 95 quotes of J. J. Abrams on MyQuotes

All I know is that I've made some big screw-ups, and I've done some things that have done all right. I just keep trying to learn from the mistakes I've made.

All the times I've been lucky enough to be a part of a show that's actually gotten on the air, it's always that same mixture of excitement and utter fear.

And the parents who knew "Star Wars" could take kids and feel like they've gone back to a place that is familiar and yet found brand-new characters that took them somewhere they'd never been. And it was important me that we embrace that feeling, and you can call it retro, but I think it's what "Star Wars" is.

Approaching any movie with a three in the title you know you are not going to get a political polemic. You are not going to get some sort of political statement or ultra-deep message.

As a kid, 'Star Wars' was much more my thing than 'Star Trek' was.

But I'm grateful for everyone who would want to read a spoiler because it means that they care and want to see the movie. I know what it feels like, as an enormous Star Wars fan myself.

Cameron Crowe is someone who I've admired for so long, and I've been friends with him for many years, and I've wanted to work with him so badly that I just never stopped bothering him about writing a script that would be for a pilot.

Directing a movie precludes me from being involved in any greater way. But, the job was never to do more, it was always to enable. Sometimes as a producer, you're creating and writing it, or sometimes you're writing and directing it, or other times you're there from the very beginning.

Every hour that you spend doing something, even if you love it more than anything, you're not with your family. Every project that you take on, that's another choice.

George Lucas is the reason that we got to make this movie, you know, he was the man that created this whole galaxy, and I am incredibly grateful to him. He's an artist and he's a grown-up. And I take him at his word, and it doesn't mean I agree with everything he says, but I respect, you know, his right to his opinion.

Honestly I'm excited about the possibilities of what comes next, and the funny thing is, that is sort of what "Star Wars" is kind of about. I mean, I remember being 10 years old and seeing that movie and leaving the theater and feeling like, oh, my God, anything is possible. And I feel like anything is possible right now. I don't know what's next, but I look forward to it.

I believe in anything that will engage the audience and make the story more effective.

I'd like to use IMAX. The problem with IMAX is that it's a very loud camera. It's a very unreliable camera. Only so much film can be in the camera. You can't really do intimate scenes with it.

I'd love to do a movie where the monster is human, where the issue is not otherworldly, or horror or science fiction.

I don't think I have a signature.

I don't try and write strong female characters or strong male characters, I just try and write, hopefully, strong characters and sometimes they happen to be female.

I do think that at a certain point, the reboot sequel mode has to give way to original ideas and back to a place where, you know, films are, you know, a medium and the cinema is a place you go to see something that is, you know, wholly new.

I do think there's something about the digital age that is increasingly dehumanising us. We're in this very weird place where we're being pulled into experiences that aren't really experiences at all.

I feel blessed that I get to be part of entertaining people in any capacity.

I feel like I learn every day how I can be a better producer or writer or storyteller. The thing that keeps me the most balanced is just going home every day and getting my ass kicked by my kids, and having a wife who is the most wonderfully/brutally honest person I've ever met. I think that that is always the first lens through which I see the world. For everything else, I'm just grateful for the people I work with.

I feel like in telling stories, there are the things the audience thinks are important, and then there are the things that are actually important.

I feel like the beauty of this age of filmmaking is that there are more tools at your disposal, but it doesn’t mean that any of these new tools are automatically the right tools. And there are a lot of situations where we went very much old school and in fact used CG more to remove things than to add things.

I find that it's hard to fully examine one's life and not have faith be part of the discussion.

If you watch the first [Star Wars] movie, you don't actually know exactly what the Empire is trying to do. They're going to rule by fear -- but you don't know what their endgame is. You don't know what Leia is princess of. You don't yet understand who Jabba the Hutt is, even though there is a reference to him. You don't know that Vader is Luke's father, Leia is his sister -- but the possibility is all there. The beauty of that movie was that it was an unfamiliar world, and yet you wanted to see it expand and to see where it went.

I guess the idea of not wanting to choose to direct a film, for which I've not read a script. It's a tough decision to make without seeing any pages. That's not to say that I don't have all the faith in the world in the spectacular writers.

I hate to look at the stuff I've written and consider what it means or why I do it.

I have no style. There are certain people who just have a visual sense that defines their work. You could probably watch 30 seconds of anything they do and you'll know exactly who directed it. I don't have that skill.

I love stories where the impossible appears believable, plausible and real. Maybe it's silly, but it's one of the reasons Michael Crichton's writing always appealed to me: he took outlandish ideas and made them seem completely within the realm of possibility. I remember reading "Jurassic Park" and feeling like: "Oh, yeah - no, that's totally happening right now. They're bringing back dinosaurs!

I'm actually a huge fan of digital as well. I appreciate how that technology opens the doors for filmmakers who never had access to that level of quality before. However, I do think film itself sets the standard for quality. You can talk about range, light, sensitive, resolution -- there's something about film that is undeniably beautiful, undeniably organic and natural and real.

I'm an impatient guy and tend not to like to stay with one thing for a long time. I'll never be able to write as many scripts as I did for "Felicity" or "Alias" ever again. I'm just too impatient these days. I want to get on to the next project.

I mean, my dad's a television producer, and I knew I could get a job as an assistant or a reader with one of his friends, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.

I'm not as optimistic as Gene Roddenberry was. I fall somewhere in the middle. But as a romantic, I like to think things are going to get bigger rather than worse.

I'm not trying to be coy or manipulative or Machiavellian, I want to spark people's imaginations.

I'm working on the Star Wars script today and the people in my office have covered up all my windows with black paper. I guess they wanted to make sure no one could see what I was doing. It seems rather extreme.

I quickly said that, because of my loyalty to 'Star Trek' and also just being a fan, I wouldn’t even want to be involved in the next version of those things. I declined any involvement very early on. I’d rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making them.

I remember being taught to read at a very early age. Like creepy young. I remember being in the crib, reading. My parents were very impressed. My reading speed, comprehension and overall ability has remained at that level ever since.

I sort of love the idea of, you know, watching something and then having to wait for the next episode.

I think admitting youre an addict is the first step towards recovery.

I think that even if you're wondering if two characters are ever going to kiss, drawing out the inevitability is part of the fun. Whatever the genre happens to be.

I think that the reason you keep hearing that it's the golden age of TV is because original storytelling is happening all the time in that medium, and people are hungry for it. And I'm as guilty as anyone for being part of an industry that is capitalizing on existing stories, sequels, these things that we are seeing again and again and again.

I think when you're 10 years old, it's too much to see something with the threat of death in every episode. Kids are better left naive about certain things.

I think you have a passion and an obsession for something when it's not necessarily ubiquitous.

It is an incredible thing to see how many crazy things get thrown out that people then often write commentaries about how happy they are or how disappointed they are about something that's completely false. But, it's a lot of noise, frankly.

I try to push ideas away, and the ones that will not leave me alone are the ones that ultimately end up happening.

It's a leap of faith doing any serialised storytelling.

It's cool to be a nerd. There's a general understanding that smartphones didn't come from jocks. The digital age was foreseen by a group of short-sleeved, buttoned-down, white-shirted guys and their female equivalents designing the very stuff that's now ubiquitous.

It's not often that I read about actors that I'm going to be meeting. I get to read articles about actors who were going to come in, so I get to see someone and say, "Oh, I read that I was going to see you. It's very nice to see you.

It's what happens. You love, then you lose, then you die. Even if you survive, you die.

I've always liked working on stories that combine people who are relatable with something insane.

I've just been lucky to work on things that I felt would be cool to see. It's not that I had a strategy or anything.