Quotes About Inspiration

We can do very little with faith, But we can do nothing without it. And so without prayer, Life would be a sad exit.

Get up, go out into the world, and do awesome shit.

People say never stand in the shadows of great men. Stand on their shoulders. I say, no: stand in their shadow, kick their ass, and tell them to get out of the way.

In every character I play, I try to imbibe something. Every film is a learning process for me.

Giving. In the RYMR leadership guide, Dr. Torie Weiston-Serdan, author of Critical Mentoring: A Practical Guide , says, "Muhammad Ali showed us that giving, even at the point of personal sacrifice,

my recovered glow informs the way I move through the world as a Black woman.

Within each film I have become one with many different kinds of people, and I have lived their lives. For this reason, in order to prepare for the making of a new film, it requires a tremendous effort to forget the people in the film that went before.

But now, as I recall my past works in order to write about them, the people from the past whom I had at last forgotten come to life again in my head, clamoring for attention, each one asserting his own individuality. I am at a loss. Each one is to me like a child of my own that I gave birth to and raised.

Unable to throw myself completely into painting, I explored literature, theater, music and film.

In matters of both film and literature I owe much to my brother's discernment. I took special care to see every film my brother recommended. As far back as elementary school I walked all the way to Asakusa to see a movie he had said was good.

However, my contact with the movies at this age has, I feel, no relation to my later becoming a film director. I simply enjoyed the varied and pleasant stimulation added to ordinary everyday life by watching the motion-picture screen. I relished laughing, getting scared, feeling sad and being moved to tears.

Yama-san was the best kind of teacher. Yama-san, I promise you I'll try a little harder, a little longer. This is the memorial speech I offer up to Yama-san.

Seeing how much hope my father still cherished for my prospects as an artist, I felt like starting over in painting. I began sketching again.

To develop a personal vision isn't easy. But when I was a young man, this insufficiency caused me not only dissatisfaction but uneasiness. I felt I had to fashion my own way of seeing, and I became more impatient. Every exhibition I went to seemed to prove to me that every painter in Japan had his own personal style and his own personal vision. I became more and more irritated with myself.

The result of spending my time on a kind of painting for which I felt no enthusiasm at all was a further, more irrevocable loss of my real desire to paint.

It seems that, no matter what is happening to me in my personal life, I am always thinking about my work without even knowing it. This phenomenon resembles some kind of karma.

When I stood behind Yama-san in his director's chair next to the camera, I felt my heart swell with that same feeling—"I've made it at last." The work he was doing was the kind that I really wanted to do. I was standing in the mountain pass, and the view that opened up before me on the other side revealed a single straight road.

Perhaps it is the power of memory that gives rise to the power of imagination.)

On these occasions I do feel an urge to talk about my work. Nevertheless, I try not to. If what I have said in my film is true, someone will understand.

He was a wonderful teacher. A really good teacher doesn't seem like a teacher at all; that's exactly how this man was.

By comparison with them, among today's schoolteachers there are too many plain "salary-man" drudges. Or perhaps even more than salary men, there are too many bureaucrat types among those who become teachers. The kind of education these people dispense isn't worth a damn. There's absolutely nothing of interest in it. So it's no wonder that students today prefer to spend their time reading comic books.

Besides these people there are many directors I revere as teachers: Shimazu Yasujir? (1897–1945), Yamanaka Sadao (1909–1938), Mizoguchi Kenji, Ozu Yasujir? and Naruse Mikio. When I think about these people, I want to raise my voice in that old song: "… thanks for our teacher's kindness, we have honored and revered.…" But none of them can hear me now.

Man is a genius when he is dreaming.

Come and meetThose dancing feetOn the avenueI'm taking you to,Forty-second Street.