Quotes from Stephen Hunter

By the '50s and '60s, war movies had become big and impersonal. They almost never bothered to characterize the Japanese enemy as particularly evil; in fact, they never bothered to characterize him at all.

'Pearl Harbor' is definitely about December 7, 1941, but it is not of December 7, 1941. It's not even really of our age, either. It has more of the feel of a film from, roughly, mid-war.

The squiggly rubber Davy Jones face in 'Pirates' with the tentacles, barnacles and goobers - that's modeled on me.

I suppose I was formed by too many movies and too much television. At some point I absorbed the dramatic formula.

Now, I am about to be nailed as the man who disliked 'Howl's Moving Castle.' Lord, give me strength! Also, IT, please disconnect the e-mail thing.

'Memoirs of a Geisha' is everything you'd expect it to be: beautiful, mesmerizing, tasteful, Japanese. It's just not very hot.

For me, as an actor, just to keep acting and to keep being able to work and to do different roles and challenging roles, that's something I'd love to do.

I kind of figured if I couldn't get a job as a dwarf, looking as I do, I should just give up acting.

I never feel so utterly fraudulent as when I review a movie whose charms impress all in the world and I simply do not get it. The other variant is that I love something the world disdains. This has had severe career consequences: I am still famous - or notorious - in certain quarters where I am recalled as the man who liked 'Hudson Hawk.'

Even my pathological love of Japan and its beauties, glories and eccentricities is sorely tested by 'The Grudge 2,' from Takashi Shimizu, a movie so bewildering and impenetrable that I believe it siphoned off a good 40 IQ points.

The prospects for a coherent, hilarious and consistent American comedy seem to lessen every year, as the poor waterlogged, gassy corpse called 'Evan Almighty' proved when it floated ashore recently. So there's a temptation to think too highly of Robin Williams's uneven but occasionally funny 'License to Wed.'

I have never connected with 'Gone With the Wind.' 'Lawrence of Arabia' leaves me cold.

Having a better and more productive life than my monster father has been my most significant accomplishment.

I love food. I'm a complete foodie. I love to cook. I find it very hard to say no to food. I get grumpy if I don't get food.

The Americans, he laughed drunkenly. They build more cars than anybody in the world, and take them out and dump them in terrible traffic jams. The only thing crazier than the Americans were the Russians, who never had traffic jams because they didn't have cars.

That's what Nick ran into all the time on the streets. Somehow in America it had stopped being about us or we or the team or the family; it was this me-thing that turned people crazy. They expected so much. They thought they were so important. Everybody was an only child.

he could make out face, he was under two hundred yards. If he could just make out head he was under three hundred. If he could make out only legs, he was under four hundred. If he could make out body, he was under five hundred; if he could only see movement, he was under six hundred.

Der Weg aus dieser Falle ist der gleiche, wie der aus jeder brenzligen Lage: Wir schlagen so hart und so schnell mit dermaßen viel Feuerkraft zu, dass die sich wünschen, sie hätten sich einen anderen Job ausgesucht.

Ihm dröhnte der Kopf von den revolutionären Sprüchen, mit denen sowohl die Schwestern als auch die Ärzte ihn in jeder wachen Stunde eindeckten.

Most bad things don't happen.

That's the bravest thing, I think: not to be brave for yourself but for a buddy when it gets you nothing and costs you everything.

They were eyes made for laughter, but not raucous yuks; rather, for the laughter of wit, of erudition, of the bon mot.

Too stupid to know better, too old to care much," said Charles.

Son, I don't think you understand. These boys killed my dog.