J. J. Abrams Quotes

I think you always win in storytelling when you let the best creative ideas guide you.

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard. What you’ve really got to do is focus on learning as much about life, and about various aspects of it first.

Part of the job is knowing how to use this medium in the most effective way for the story you're telling, so for me, to pick a genre I want to do is a little harder. I would say it's more about thinking, 'What genre will work for what kind of story?' And then, when all of that comes, I embrace it and run with it.

Sometimes, if I had until the next day to turn the story in, I'd head home, finding that the knot in the narrative came loose with the rhythmic clacking of the subway train.

The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important.

The most important thing is the story. Not the script, but the story.

That is many poets don't know how to tell a story and they don't have a sense of how to put things in order to tell a story and we thought the poets could learn from fiction writers something about developing a character over time who wasn't just you and also creating a narrative structure.

The writing is always the easy part, provided I can get the good material. It's the getting of the good material that's a challenge.

The elements of a good story are most definitely details, little bitty details. That does it, especially when you're describing, when you're setting the scene and everything. It's like you're painting a picture, so details are very important. Also, the music gotta be right. The music can really set the tone for the story and let you know what the story is gonna be about, but definitely, it's the vibe in the place where you at and the detail.

I've always just wanted to tell stories, and create stuff, and I think "Creator" or "Director" would probably be the two words that I go to first.

I'm probably more character-driven than plot-driven. It's rare for me to attach myself to an idea for a story.

It was very important to me to choose a director like Gary [Ross], whose instincts come from character, who's a storyteller, and who puts characters first.

Every story starts with an idea, but it is the characters that move this idea forward.

I think you have to pick and choose what is most important to tell the story.

I'm still getting to the good part / the breaking down / learning how to write my story.

The work of a director can be summed up in two very simple words. Why and How.

Once you play with these scenes and you're outlining it, again and again, and telling each other the narrative, and telling it to people you know, trying to make sure that the mathematics of the story work, you feel that those are in place, and the actual writing and final draft doesn't take as long.

I think of a plot, I think of an idea, and then I wonder, How can I get that onto the stage? . . . Whatever devices you use should always be there to serve the theme. If the theme has been overtaken by the device, then something's wrong.

For me, the only ego that needs serving in putting together a film is the story's, the ego of the story and it's the piece itself that you want to bring out the voice of the piece. You're really serving that and that's the thing that you have a basic understanding of.

I've wanted to direct for a long time, but it had to be a story I wanted to tell. The writer's job is to find the story that he should tell.

The last story you should write is the most important story. You should start with a story that is just an amusing, entertaining, fun story to write and learn your writing chops with the least important things before you start applying them to the most important things.

When I journal, I write about images that I've seen that I think might make good stories. I write about things that I hear that I think I can turn into a story. I write about the story that I'm working on and where I think it might go.

I'm a narrative-minded actor. I'm thinking of the story. I'm not worried about whether the camera is on the right side of my face, or where the camera is. I'm just going for the story.

I don't know what the definition of a short story is, and I don't even care to answer that question. That's something somebody in academia would think about. I just want to tell a story, and if people listen, and if it stays with you, it's a story.

The stories tend to be what I work on when I'm stuck. Something will just pop into my head and I'll think that's more of a story.