Edward Norton famous quotes

The best films of any kind, narrative or documentary, provoke questions.
-- Edward Norton

#Narrative #Documentaries #Kind

The incentive for business is not, and cannot, be anything other than the root incentive for all business: they must profit.
-- Edward Norton

#Roots #Incentives #Profit

Life, like poker has an element of risk. It shouldn't be avoided. It should be faced.
-- Edward Norton

#Risk #Elements #Should

To me, achieving tone, achieving consistency, is exactly the job of a director. It is to be the fusing, the nexus of a whole bunch of people contributing to the complex life of a movie. There are actors, there's a cinematographer, there're costume people, set people, there are all these things, and you somehow have to be the person in the middle of it who is making it all synchronize into the same magic bubble.
-- Edward Norton

#Jobs #People #Consistency

The more you do your homework, the more you're free to be intuitive. But you've got to put the work in.
-- Edward Norton

#Acting #Homework

David Fincher is probably the best comprehensive director in terms of being a manger of a process that must drive forward. He has such confident command of cinema language and visual language and script and performance. He knows more about f-stops than any cameraman, he knows more about lighting than any gaffer, he is a wonderful writer, and he can give you a good line reading. Under pressure, he is the kind of guy who you will just dive in with and trust and follow because his vision is so intense.
-- Edward Norton

#Reading #Giving #Guy

Instead of telling the world what you're eating for breakfast, you can use social networking to do something that's meaningful.
-- Edward Norton

#Meaningful #Networking #Use

When people come together too young, they try to become one person. As you get older, you realize that you don't want to become one person because then you lose the person you are.
-- Edward Norton

#People #Trying #Together

The more you can create that magic bubble, that suspension of disbelief, for a while, the better.
-- Edward Norton

#Magic #Disbelief #Bubbles

If two people are at completely different stages in their spiritual life, that can present a real problem.
-- Edward Norton

#Spiritual #Real #Two

I never think that a film should answer questions for you. I think it should make you ask a lot of questions.
-- Edward Norton

#Thinking #Answers #Film

What has always been most interesting about acting to me personally is that it affords you the chance to shift gears, both in terms of the experiences you get to have through doing it, but also the different kinds of things you get to represent.
-- Edward Norton

#Interesting #Acting #Different

I almost forgot what it's like to be proud of my government.
-- Edward Norton

#Government #Proud #Be Proud

I do subscribe to the maxim that generally comedy is like jazz. Either you get it or you don't. You can't learn it and you can't be taught it. I don't think that if you are not a funny person, you can fake it.
-- Edward Norton

#Thinking #Fake #Taught

I don't smoke and I don't want to smoke. I am not a fan of gratuitous smoking in films.
-- Edward Norton

#Smoking #Fans #Want

Most people don't relate to and can't generate concern for something they don't encounter personally or feel personally affected by. People have to have the palpable negatives in their lives dissected for them in ways that let them understand the root causes of unhealthy, unhappy conditions in their lives and then be allowed to really see and feel the positive alternatives.
-- Edward Norton

#Roots #People #Unhappy

Well, I don't feel that I've played so many bad guys, and I'm rot really drawn to villains per se. I think a lot of people relate to some of my characters' inner struggles.
-- Edward Norton

#Struggle #Character #Thinking

Most of us still believe in the intrinsic value of nature, but I think the first century of the environmental/conservation movement demonstrated pretty clearly that this value cannot compel a civilization-wide shift toward sustainable behavior and enterprise when stacked up against the urgent economic and social needs of 7 billion people, most of whom are struggling to get out of poverty.
-- Edward Norton

#Believe #Struggle #Thinking

I like it when the deeper you go with the character, the more you see the layers start to peel away.
-- Edward Norton

#Character #Layers #Deeper

The "environmental movement" is becoming an economic movement, is joining the social justice movement, is becoming a sustainability movement. It's leaving behind the "People's Needs versus Nature's Needs" conflict in favor of making the case for environmental health as the essential underpinning of prosperous and stable human civilization.
-- Edward Norton

#Civilization #People #Justice

I've always thought of acting as more of an exercise in empathy, which is not to be confused with sympathy. You're trying to get inside a certain emotional reality or motivational reality and try to figure out what that's about so you can represent it.
-- Edward Norton

#Confused #Exercise #Reality

I think that the environmental movement is wisely moving away from a largely emotion-based argument for the spiritual or intrinsic value of Nature with a capital "N" and evolving toward a very hard-nosed case for the economic value of natural capital, ecosystem services, biodiversity, etc.
-- Edward Norton

#Spiritual #Moving #Thinking

I'd say that, in addition to actually taking my brother and sister and I camping and hiking and river rafting all our lives and introducing us to the power of natural landscapes, his [my father's] biggest impact on my thinking has been to always argue that the "spiritual case for Nature" was not going to outweigh the needs of 7 billion people and to insist that law, science and economics were the critical frameworks through which we had to defend the value of nature.
-- Edward Norton

#Spiritual #Brother #Father

Most of what I know about environmental conservation I learned from my father, who has been a leader within the movement for over 30 years.
-- Edward Norton

#Father #Years #Leader

To cite my own alma mater, it's shocking to me that Yale University can teach what it teaches at the Yale School of Environmental Studies and utterly fail to mirror those values in any way in its investment practices.
-- Edward Norton

#School #Mirrors #Yale

I think one of the most important investments an organization like TNC [The Nature Conservancy] can make is in helping build local capacity - supporting the growth of a global network of small community-based entities. Help people who live within critical ecosystems help themselves and their neighbors to design a better future relationship between themselves and their natural resources.
-- Edward Norton

#Thinking #Organization #Ecosystems

Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige, my friend.
-- Edward Norton

#Cousin #Littles #Prestige

You never make all things for all people and can't always pander to the broadest denominator. I keep an eye toward doing the themes that interest me. Do they move me? Interest me? Make me think? When I run across something that is provocative in an unsettling way, it appeals to me.
-- Edward Norton

#Running #Moving #Eye

I don't get much out of doing a red carpet.
-- Edward Norton

#Red #Carpet #Red Carpet

Everyone keeps saying the western's dead, but it's not.
-- Edward Norton

#Western

Basically, I think 21st century conservation is moving toward preserving ecosystems by dealing with the needs of people.
-- Edward Norton

#Moving #Thinking #Ecosystems

A lot of why I do something is just the novelty of the experience.
-- Edward Norton

#Novelty

All people are paradoxical. No one is easily reducible, so I like characters who have contradictory impulses or shades of ambiguity. It's fun, and it's fun because it's hard.
-- Edward Norton

#Fun #Character #People

You always end up getting involved in things because of, you know, the strange things your life brings you into contact with.
-- Edward Norton

#Strange #Ends #Because Of You

No, I'm not a very methodologically pure actor.
-- Edward Norton

#Actors

I don't have anything to prove to anybody, which is a lovely place to be.
-- Edward Norton

#Lovely #Prove

Identical twins are endemically alike in many ways.
-- Edward Norton

#Way #Twins #Identical Twin

Duality is not a story. Duality is just a complexity.
-- Edward Norton

#Stories #Duality #Complexity

People are worried about the degree to which corporate interest is starting to threaten human interest.
-- Edward Norton

#People #Degrees #Worried

It's better for people to miss you than to have seen too much of you.
-- Edward Norton

#People #Missing #Too Much

Anybody who is running a marathon or doing a walkathon, doing a fundraiser for their school, their company, by far it's guaranteed the easiest and most fun way to quickly set up a fundraising campaign and send it around to your friends and family.
-- Edward Norton

#Running #Fun #School

Sometimes we don't see certain things until we're ready to see them in a certain way.
-- Edward Norton

#Dream #Vision #Way

You can't control everything that comes to you.
-- Edward Norton

I've observed over and over that people seem to get a much deeper sense of fulfillment out of something they've done as an act of service than out of the things they do for themselves.
-- Edward Norton

#Inspirational #People #Done

At this point in my life I'm not bent on proving anything, really.
-- Edward Norton

#Bent #Prove

Unpopular speech is absolutely vital to the health of our nation.
-- Edward Norton

#Speech

I always felt that acting was an escape, like having the secret key to every door and permission to go into any realm and soak it up. I enjoy that free pass.
-- Edward Norton

#Keys #Doors #Secret

As we say in the sewer, if you're not prepared to go all the way, don't put your boots on in the first place.
-- Edward Norton

#Perseverance #Boots #Way

Practiced poorly, tourism can be extremely negative.
-- Edward Norton

#Travel #Tourism #Negative

When the tides of life turn against you And the current upsets your boat, Don't waste those tears on what might have been, Just lie on your back and float.
-- Edward Norton

#Lying #Upset #Tears

I think there is a serious corruption in the idea sold through advertising that you can attain spiritual peace through lifestyle and the notion of building your happiness from the outside-in by acquiring things . . . which if you think about it, is the essence of advertising
-- Edward Norton

#Happiness #Spiritual #Thinking

I grew up on the golden age of children's TV.
-- Edward Norton

#Birthday #Children #Age

If Nick Broomfield never found anyone with affection for Courtney Love, it's only because he conspicuously avoided the countless friends, colleagues and fans who appreciate her talent and admire her as a person. But then, why would Broomfield have opened up his film to those of us who work with Courtney and are close to her when there are so many bitter left - behinds and desperate attention - seekers eager to validate his attack on her character? Inquisitors in every age, scared of forceful women, have used all kinds of half - baked testimony to whip up chants of 'Burn the witch!'
-- Edward Norton

#Character #Appreciate #Age

I'm not particularly precious about the theatrical experience any more.
-- Edward Norton

#Theatrical

I do find myself drawn more to pieces that I feel are wrestling with the way that we're living now, what we're all going through.
-- Edward Norton

#Wrestling #Pieces #Way

When you're working on a creative thing, everyone has an idea, and they're pushing it. The first time you work with anybody, you have to get comfortable with the way another person pushes hard for what they want.
-- Edward Norton

#Ideas #Creative #Want

I get heartbroken flying into L.A. It's just this feeling of unspecific loss. Can you imagine what the San Fernando Valley was when it was all wheat fields? Can you imagine what John Steinbeck saw?
-- Edward Norton

#Heartbroken #Loss #Flying

Look, you've got a generation of people coming along who are going to form their own new relationship with the idea of supporting the causes that they care about or changing the world. And these people are not going to do it the way our parents do it.
-- Edward Norton

#New Relationship #Ideas #People

I tend to have a kind of tunnel vision when I'm looking at an individual piece.
-- Edward Norton

#Tunnels #Vision #Pieces

I read a lot of scripts and so many are clearly a knockoff of one familiar genre or another.
-- Edward Norton

#Scripts #Genre #Familiar

I have this embedded faith in the process through which films of a certain type get discovered on longer timelines.
-- Edward Norton

#Film #Embedded #Certain

I don't flatter myself - I'm not a scientist, I'm not a conservation expert.
-- Edward Norton

#Experts #Conservation #Scientist

Every little thing that people know about you as a person impedes your ability to achieve that kind of terrific suspension of disbelief that happens when an audience goes with an actor and character he's playing.
-- Edward Norton

#Character #People #Actors

Fame is very corrosive and you have to guard very strictly against it.
-- Edward Norton

#Fame

I just like working with smart people.
-- Edward Norton

#Smart #People #Smart People

I remember as a kid having the offer of a scholarship, that it was going to be like going to Mars, and deciding to stay in my public school.
-- Edward Norton

#Kids #School #Mars

In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.
-- Edward Norton

#Drama #Thinking #Trying

I tend to relate to a character in terms of the arc: what's interesting is where he starts versus where he ends up.
-- Edward Norton

#Character #Interesting #Arcs

I'm a New Yorker, you know.
-- Edward Norton

I've always liked the idea of taking old dramatic ideas and devices and making them feel relevant or contemporary or whatever.
-- Edward Norton

#Ideas #Dramatic #Relevant

Young people know how to use these social networking tools, and they know how to use them effectively.
-- Edward Norton

#People #Use #Networking

You know, independent films have been institutionalized, practically. Every studio has got a boutique arthouse label.
-- Edward Norton

#Independent #Labels #Film

The film industry needs to confront the physical footprint of the way films get made.
-- Edward Norton

#Way #Needs #Film

My generation is having its midlife crisis in its 20s.
-- Edward Norton

#Generations #Midlife #Crisis

If I ever have to stop taking the subway, I'm gonna have a heart attack.
-- Edward Norton

#Heart #Subway #Heart Attack

I think we really feel like Crowdrise could be something that, 20 years from now, people take for granted because that's just how you do it, like if you're going to raise money for something, that's how you do it.
-- Edward Norton

#Thinking #Years #People

People wrestle sometimes making movies, and I think that conflict is a very essential thing. I think a lot of very happy productions have produced a lot of very banal movies.
-- Edward Norton

#Thinking #People #Essentials

Just because you've made a couple movies, you've done some good movies, you've been nominated for some Academy Awards, whatever, nobody's entitled. It's a business. If they don't see it, I can think they're wrong, but I'm not entitled to a $15 million budget to make a film.
-- Edward Norton

#Couple #Thinking #Awards

I'm fascinated by the ways in which people express themselves, because their responses are often counter to what they're actually feeling. Like when they're frightened, they tend to freeze. When they're angry, it doesn't always come out as volume. There are wonderful contradictions in the way that people express their emotions.
-- Edward Norton

#People #Feelings #Way

As we say in the sewer, time and tide wait for no man.
-- Edward Norton

#Men #Waiting #Tides

If I'm trying to put size on for a role, then I don't do much running.
-- Edward Norton

#Running #Romance #Trying