J. J. Abrams Quotes

Since I started making films, I've been a nut for dialogue. When I first saw Star Wars when I was 12 years old, I came home and recited all of the lines from it. Before I talked about Death Stars exploding and Tie Fighters I was talking about how funny Princess Leia was and how sarcastic Han Solo was. So to me that's always the most important thing, and I love hearing great actors say great lines.

I have a suspicion, because if you look at the whole, all the [Star Wars ] movies, the backlog of every one of these movies, there's a lot of great stuff, but one might not be not as good with the writing in this or the acting in that or the directing in that, this has great actors, great directors, great script, and I really feel like we're gonna make the best one [movie with Young Han Solo].

I'm famously secretive about my work. Nobody reads my books till they're finished.

I don't want to expose the intricacies of my work so people can understand how I did it.

I never show anything to anybody until I've finished it.

I cannot tell you who will be accompanying me and why, because that would only make myself more vulnerable. So I will not talk about that.

The first script was one of six original stories I had written in the form of two trilogies. After the success of Star Wars, I added another trilogy. So now there are nine stories. The original two trilogies were conceived of as six films of which the first film was number four.

It wasn't long after I began writing Star Wars that I realized the story was more than a single film could hold. As the saga of the Skywalkers and Jedi Knights unfolded, I began to see it as a tale that could take at least nine films to tell - three trilogies - and I realized, in making my way through the back story and after story, that I was really setting out to make the middle story.

Star Wars is not entertainment. Star Wars is George Lucas masturbating to a picture of Joseph Campbell and conning billions of people into watching the money shot.

I don't discuss works in progress.

I made myself into an envelope into which I could thrust my work deep, lick the flap, seal it from everybody.

Maybe in this Star Wars world maybe subconsciously I was preparing myself. But I've just found all of my ideas I've been coming up with are big sci-fi things, and I wanted to do a big epic, a big space opera, and this is it. This is mine.

Some things are private, Ethan. Even for grown-ups.

There are things that directors know about me that people shouldn't know.

I like comedies, and my brain sort of spins in that direction. So I'm really happy to say there were several smartass comments that come from me [on Star Wars].

I learned so much about the making of Star Wars and that became a real drive for me, right from the time I was 12 or 13.

Heavens, no! It could get subpoenaed. I can't write anything. When asked if she had a diary.

It is always assumed by the empty-headed, who chatter about themselves for want of something better, that people who do not discuss their affairs openly must have something to hide.

The act of writing itself is done in secret, like masturbation.

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.

My uniform [in Star Wars] was cool. Not much else I can think of at the moment. You know, you don't know the enormity of these kinds of films until well after you're done.

He that has a secret should not only hide it, but hide that he has it to hide.

Hear, see, and be silent.

Confidentiality is the essence of being trusted.

I read Dad's books like I did before, now things are crystal clear. Lock the door in the bathroom, now I just can't get caught in here.