Quotes from Edward Zwick

In my experience of the men of action I have met - whether from the Second World War or Iraq or Vietnam - they often had to do things that they would rather not reflect upon afterwards. This is perhaps one reason why the story of the Bielskis remained untold for so long.

In my experience, the men of World War II, the vets of Vietnam, even guys coming back from Iraq, are loath to talk about their experiences. And the survivors of the Holocaust, particularly, are often very close-mouthed about their stories, even to their own children.

It seems that almost every time a valuable natural resource is discovered in the world-whether it be diamonds, rubber, gold, oil, whatever-often what results is a tragedy for the country in which they are found. Making matters worse, the resulting riches from these resources rarely benefit the people of the country from which they come.

Adolescence is a time in which you experience everything more intensely.

In my office, we were talking about the fact that they'd announced a remake of 'A Star is Born,' and I was bemoaning the idea of a fourth remake. And the young guys who work in my office were giving me blank looks, like, 'What's 'A Star is Born?'

The military has been actually remarkable at dealing with race, but gender is an issue.

The phone that you carry around with you. It's not just that it's a locator for anybody who wants to actually find out where you are, but it's also a leash. It's a reminder just how tethered you are.

When you're in a fight, and you get hit, it hurts. And as you get older, you begin to take on the aches and the bruises of doing that.

People who have any kind of illness use humor as a type of coping.

Sometimes when we weep in the movies we weep for ourselves or for a life unlived. Or we even go to the movies because we want to resist the emotion that's there in front of us. I think there is always a catharsis that I look for and that makes the movie experience worthwhile.

When my own son was 12, we didn't want toy guns in the house. So he just picked up a stick and went, 'Bam! Bam! Bam!' That's the testosterone of a 12-year-old boy.

Scale is not just something that a director wants so as to play with all the toys. Scale also lends verisimilitude, to put together a real world.

I had known a couple of people in college who went off the rails, who had significant bouts with mental illness.

I don't think movies can ever be too intense, but people have to understand why you're showing them the things you are showing them.

I was trained in the repertory theater. You would do Moliere one night and Sam Shepard the next.

The Mitch Rapp novels are as thrilling and entertaining as they are relevant. I am delighted to be given the opportunity to translate them to the screen.

If I try to think objectively about myself and my work, I would say I want to be intuitive and distinctive.

You can't help but reveal your bias, and you can't but invest personally in any story that you tell.

I've always believed that the stories and the performances are more important than I am. I think that the more invisible that my hand is, the more attention people can pay to the story and to those performances.

It's hard not to want to become Ken Burns at times. I'm interested in being a Ken Burns who reaches that 17-year-old who goes to the multiplex just to see a good story well-told. And if there's history in it, all the better.

I think every culture - you can call it an American Ronin, a medieval knight errant, you could talk about 'Shane.' There is an archetype that I think is actually common to a lot of cultures, and even the Clint Eastwood stuff was probably as influenced by the Japanese stuff, and yet done by an Italian.

Growing up, movies were something my family and, later, my friends and I would stay up all night talking about. The movies I remember moved me and forced you to think about things that made you know yourself better.

The idea that things can be serious minded but must be somehow balkanized in the art-house ghetto is very upsetting because I think it limits not just the audience who was already going to see it, but those who might have had their tastes developed at a younger age.

I think to see American troops in an American city is, you know, the sum of all of our fears.