Quotes from George Cukor

If there is such a thing as 'a Cukor style,' I guess it arises out of two principal factors: my own personalized perception of the world and my ability to deal professionally with actors. As far as perception is concerned, I always try to imagine settings through the best possible eyes.

I don't think you can teach people how to be funny. You can make suggestions about how to speak a line or get a laugh, but it has to be in them.

When one deals with stars, he is dealing with intelligent people. If they weren't intelligent, they wouldn't have arrived at the star pinnacle.

Unless the story line carries the scenes, the scenes don't really mean anything.

I suppose they call me a woman's director because there were all these movie queens in the old days, and I directed most of them. But I also directed Jack Barrymore and Ronald Colman and James Stewart, to name a few.

From the director's point of view, it's infinitely easier to do violence than to do a good dramatic scene.

As a professional, it pains me to watch a movie that is botched and amateurish. I prefer directors who have control of both their craft and their ideas.

You learn out of bitter experience, trial and error. Life teaches you that. As sincere as you all are, you can't learn it all in school.

So many directors say nothing beautifully, and so many others say great and profound things but have no idea how to read a light meter or arrange a shot.

You can't have any successes unless you can accept failure.

You're just poor cornball provincial people, you critics; you just don't know what the hell you're talking about.

People who aren't complicated in real life come through as pretty bland on the screen. Most great performers are not very happy and well adjusted. Perhaps that's the price they pay for being originals.

It is reassuring for people to feel they have a boss, someone who knows the answers and has charted the course.

If I were very handsome, maybe I'd have been an actor.

Looking for love is tricky business, like whipping a carousel horse.

Give me a good script, and I'll be a hundred times better as a director.

The truth is, a director wins an Oscar for a writer's script and actors' performances.

You can always land on your feet if you know where the ground is.

You can't have any successes unless you can accept failure.

Don't let a kick in the ass stop you. It's how you cope that says what you are.

When it goes wrong, you feel like cutting your throat, but you go on. You don't let anything get you down so much that it beats you or stops you.

Anyone who looked at something special, in a very original way, makes you see it that way forever.

I choose my actors well and get to know the quirks of their personalities - and, most of all, I share humor with them. Then I keep my eyes open when they rehearse and perform, because you never know where the next stimulation comes from.

It never occurred to me that I could live in California. Now I can't imagine living anywhere else.