1.
I became a loner. I became a mountain man. A lot of those things are very good qualities and they help you do your work, help you be singular and keep the artistic integrity of your work intact, but they don't make it very easy to live your life.
John Milius
2.
Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
John Milius
3.
Everybody's a filmmaker today.
John Milius
4.
There is a certain kind of respect for authenticity today that there wasn't back in the days when they did 'Cleopatra,' where everything looked like a giant motel. People want to have it be authentic in the look, and authentic in the way people behave.
John Milius
5.
I find that screenwriting is at best kind of a hackwork in some ways.
John Milius
6.
Films are always pretentious. There's nothing more pretentious than a filmmaker.
John Milius
7.
I may not be the strongest guy or the most well armed, but you can put me in a room with a pencil and a piece of paper and I can kill anybody.
John Milius
8.
To be a good executive you have to be strong, and you have to have a simple attribute that people have forgotten about - courage.
John Milius
9.
I suppose when I started out I would have liked to have been the darling of critics or something, but everybody wants to be loved and admired.
John Milius
10.
I felt that the Star Wars series became very pretentious as time went on. Just heavy and leaden.
John Milius
11.
The people that really pass judgment on you really have nothing to do with what you do, usually.
John Milius
12.
Most artists think they're frauds anyway.
John Milius
13.
I mean, the old film critics just excoriated me.
John Milius
14.
I've always had trouble with authority.
John Milius
15.
I hardly said a word to my wife until I said 'yes' to divorce.
John Milius
16.
Writing requires a great deal of skill, just like painting does. People don't want to learn those skills.
John Milius
17.
Egotism is not a good quality. It's not something to be admired or even tolerated. It wouldn't be tolerated in a field commander and it shouldn't be tolerated in a movie director.
John Milius
18.
No, you're either born a writer, a storyteller, or you're not.
John Milius
19.
Also, they don't understand - writing is language. The use of language. The language to create image, the language to create drama. It requires a skill of learning how to use language.
John Milius
20.
The filmmakers always have a great level of control.
John Milius
21.
A lot of people thought of me as a threat to Western civilization.
John Milius
22.
I've always been able to survive by writing, though.
John Milius
23.
I also thought of myself as the Sonny Barger of the film industry.
John Milius
24.
Matter of fact, the style that people use today, I invented in a way.
John Milius
25.
You know, I find it very strange when movies that I made that were just excoriated - I mean that I was just vilified for - are now looked at as classics.
John Milius
26.
I was never conscious of my screenplays having any acts. It's all bullshit.
John Milius
27.
A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.
John Milius
28.
I'm the barbarian of Hollywood.
John Milius