Rue McClanahan Quotes

Hollywood was never great for children.

Basically the children who watch it just see the little characters they love, and so they're not discerning about whether it looks great or it's a great story or anything.

When I meet parents in my children's school, they say there aren't good films for kids to watch. I wonder about the lack of such films too. What do my kids watch?

Disney cartoons are all rated G. It's really funny. There are kids all over the world who still have complexes over Bambi's father getting shot by the hunter and Bambi's mother getting crisped. But that's the way it's always been. This is the sort of material that appeals to kids. Kids understand it instinctively. They grip it.

It doesn't really matter to me whether the 7-year-olds are big fans of my work. I'm happy just to be working at all. I do think it will be nice to have a movie that my son can watch.

At the end of the day, I just want a movie that's great, that people are going to love and laugh at and be affected by, and also have an emotional journey.

It's important to remember that the animals are not grieving with us. They're very accepting. They're not lying there thinking 'How could you do this to me? Why aren't you keeping me going?' Pets don't do the human things of guilt and anger and recrimination that we do. They come and go with great acceptance.

I really think 'Spring Awakening' is unlike any other show. At the end of the day, I hope people are moved by it... whether they love it or they find it uncomfortable. I hope this show can awaken something in them, or reminds them of their childhood, or offers a bit of assurance to what teenagers are going through. It's a great piece of theater.

When the audience is awful you can still have a great night and people will walk out thinking they had a great time even though there was loads of loudmouths and the sound was terrible.

You don't know when you are immersed in a book what the reaction to it will be, but I feel great about 'The Lake of Dreams.'

The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.

Most of the musical film work that I have done has been in this realm of what I think of as real family entertainment.

Disney has a great tradition of enchanting children and giving them something to behold.

They are always very lax about putting restrictions on violence for children's movies, which I think is much more harrowing than sexuality for children.

George Lucas puts those types of characters in for the kids. Same with Jar Jar.

Our great problem, is that children now know whatever they want to know - at the press of a button they can discover all horrors of the adult world. They know very early on that the world is sometimes a very dark, difficult and complex place, and the literature they read must reflect that. Otherwise we're just entertaining them to pass the time.

I don't gamble, because winning a hundred dollars doesn't give me great pleasure. But losing a hundred dollars pisses me off.

I feel angry that I can't be hypnotized. I'm not putting it down, and I'm not saying that it doesn't exist. I have talked to a great many people who are very good at it, but so far nobody has ever been able to hypnotize me.

One day, I just got up to read a poem and started singing. I looked around - the reaction was great. And I said, 'Oh, boy. I like this.'

The message of great art is to disturb.

When I was a kid, there was no distinction between a movie about old people or young people. It was either funny or not. It was either entertaining or not. It was either exciting or not. It was either thrilling or not.

I think that if an audience is truly appreciative of a performance, they will show it. Sometimes though, there are little differences, and there are audiences that are very reserved even though they are enjoying the show.

I spend a lot of time at my son's school and I really wanted to do a movie that the kids could see. The good thing about being my age and not having to be the ingenue anymore is that I get to be a mom. I get to have kids in my movies.

Yeah, I definitely wanted to do a kids' movie because I have a kid. I want to do things that my daughter can see soon - when she is old enough to know what a movie is.

Cinema builds memories; great films continue to exist in the spectator's mind. We are naturally capable of and prone to nostalgia. A spectator will reconstruct a film he or she has seen, years later, and may even change their original opinion. One critic, for example, once gave the finger to one of my films; later he wrote me to apologize.