Oliver Stone
Obama took a bad situation and, in certain ways, made it worse. ... I find Obama scary in a way that I had not done in 2008.Collection: Scary
[Fidel Castro] has a very good [human rights] record.Collection: Rights
What Chavez has done [in Venezuela] is that he has brought extreme poverty to an end.Collection: Venezuela
I couldn't despise a man more than George W. Bush.Collection: Men
There is nothing inherently wrong with greed as a human motivator - greed motivating evolution. But there's a huge disconnect between the classes. It is very demoralizing to work for someone who makes a billion dollars a year while you make just barely enough to make it.Collection: Greed
When you look at the global situation, if America learned to be one of the many countries in the world and to find its way to cooperate with people and bring a global peace that could bring great prosperity to this globe, there is still a chance of that, and that's a big lesson from history. We are not paying attention to that.Collection: Country
Bernie Sanders is a disappointment on foreign policy, totally doesn't think about it. But he has the possibility to be more isolationist, which would be good for us actually. We manage to kill several million people on this planet without taking any credit for it or blame. It's a heavy karma we have.Collection: Karma
I'd like to be honest to my time, and I lived from 1946, and I want to understand why our country, which I love so much, and was a great country when I was young, it seemed, became this monster vampire on the face of humanity- a vampire squid, to quote Matt Taibbi, sucking out the juices of all mankind. Why? It's a basic question.Collection: Country
I've changed my style constantly, so I'm not sure I have one defined style, except perhaps style of subject matter.Collection: Style
What needs to happen is more of a global understanding, and I believe the United States can work as a global partner and not be the hegemon.Collection: Believe
[When making movies I] set out to be authentic to [myself] and to put it down the way [I] feel it and know it and interpret it. And then others sometimes key into it and get it.Collection: Keys
Venezuela is a democratically elected government. These people who keep protesting are sore losers.Collection: Government
Nationalism and patriotism are the two most evil forces that I know of in this century or in any century and cause more wars and more death and more destruction to the soul and to human life than anything else.Collection: War
Bin Laden was completely protected by the oil companies in this country who told [President] Bush not to go after him because it would piss off the Saudis.Collection: Country
I have skipped from style to style from film to film, and I love doing that because it's given me the ability to free myself from the past. Perhaps one of the worst feelings that I can have is the feeling that I'm locked in, like a prisoner of myself, which is something we all feel at some point in our lives. So part of making those stylistic jumps is just to free myself up-to get away from the old or the old Oliver Stone.Collection: Past
I've changed my style constantly, so I'm not sure I have one defined style, except perhaps style of subject matter. But you learn as you go, I suppose.Collection: Style
I love the act of writing. I like the quiet, internal aspect of it. If I lost track of that, I couldn't direct the same way. I couldn't be a director for-hire; it's just not my nature.Collection: Writing
When I make a new movie, I always get stuck with, "That's not an Oliver Stone film." But I don't know what to do about that except just move on.Collection: Moving
Unfortunately, the truth is that people do go scot-free and it's unfair. A lot of the top drug people who have been arrested are also free.Collection: People
With television, the image has been degenerated, no question. With the internet, commercials... people are much too cynical about image. It's stale. And all over the world, not just America.Collection: America
My ego is nothing - look what Alexander the Great achieved. And I felt he was a figure outside time, a figure we don't even understand, because he's frankly pre-Christian, and his concepts of honor go back to Homer.Collection: Christian
You get much more heat when you do something current.Collection: Heat
I definitely love history. I'm not formally trained or educated in history, but you could say I did go back to college in 2008 to do Untold History of the United States. That took five years. Co-author Peter Kuznick has been teaching history for something like 35 years, at American University and other places. His group of researchers brought me into contact with a lot of books.Collection: Book
Now with digital, we have much better projection, and if the theaters are charging higher prices but providing refreshments and a clean, well-lit theater, there's no reason why this cannot go on as a senior-citizen-driven business for years. Especially with movies for adults.Collection: Senior
Every time you go into a movie, you go into the point of view of who it is about.Collection: Views
I gave up on America. I read the Times just to find out what they're thinking. I read blogs. I get most of my best information from people who are there, people who write independently. And there's actually very few of them.Collection: Writing
I do have a side as a citizen, and I've always expressed it, and that's where I've gotten into misunderstandings, because some people see me as a leftist nut or whatever. A conspiracy nut. All that stuff. These are definitions that don't really apply to a dramatist, because a dramatist is working from empathy.Collection: Nuts
I believe in intermissions. I lived through this experience with JFK and Nixon. JFK should have had an intermission. It should have come right after the Donald Sutherland scene, because then there's just too much information flooding in. You need a break. Same on Nixon. It was a long film, but I couldn't help it, with that kind of subject.Collection: Believe
I've seen my kids' work at school, and I think they're better than when I was young, 'cause I was brainwashed into anti-Communism. This is a much more interesting view of history than I've ever seen, and I hope to God it works. It's classic history, classically told. No talking heads. Just pure archival footage and a storyline.Collection: School
A lot of the good cameraman who we used are doing television work; they're doing commercials for a lot of money. And the commercials look incredible. But what's it about? I made three major commercial campaigns. I enjoyed it, I experimented with it, and at the end of the day I felt no satisfaction. It was like having a fast food lunch.Collection: Lunch
I'm a history person; I love history. But I am conditioned by the present.Collection: Persons
I don't want to make a half-assed film. It's not my area of expertise.Collection: Half
Each actor requires a different language.Collection: Different
All the Greek mythic heroes had gone east, but they were myths. Achilles was a myth. Perseus, Theseus, Hercules... they probably existed in some form. But they all went east. That's where a Greek went to make his bones so to speak. And Alexander the Great was the first man who actually went east not to plunder, not to loot and come back to Greece - which is where the Macedonians wanted to go back with the money. He stayed. And he became half-Eastern.Collection: Hero
Get the overall. Some of my films may have been crude at times, or tough, or missed the points, but I've tried to get the overall in. I think that's more important. You may miss a thing or two, but you move faster. If you can do it in three takes, do it in three takes.Collection: Moving
You always try to find the right style for the movie. That's the key.Collection: Keys
I think there's a whole older generation that will go to movies still. People like me; people over 45.Collection: Thinking
Every movie requires its own style. Just be honest to the story. Tell the story in the best possible way that is different, exciting and original.Collection: Style
I think a lot of people misunderstand what I'm doing, because my films are not easy sometimes. They do deserve a second viewing. I think they get misunderstood easily.Collection: Thinking
People should really horde their Blu-rays like old comic books and baseball cards. Because they're really beautiful, and will be worth something if you like movies as I do.Collection: Beautiful
Horses are very difficult to shoot.Collection: Horse
What I've experienced, I'm trying to put in a narrative form, I suppose, to say that it does make sense in this way.Collection: Trying
I look at Homer and The Odyssey and all the disparate adventures this guy goes through, and then he returns home and the question is, is he the same man who left?Collection: Home
There is a narrative to every life, and I believe in the classic mode of storytelling that goes back to Homer and carries through to today.Collection: Believe
The Greek playwrights, we're all beholden to them, every one of us.Collection: Greek
I guess you could say Alexander the Great was a man who completely transported me and moved me and inspired me because of his idealism, and I'd go back to the Greeks, and I always liked Homer and all the philosophers and their way of thinking and their concept of honor. I think their concept of honor does apply to the modern age, and certain people that walk around are pre-Christian.Collection: Christian
Christianity did take a lot of Greek concepts.Collection: Greek
Just because we live in a Christian era doesn't mean we're all Christian, necessarily.Collection: Christian