90 Quotes by Paul Greengrass

Most of the films that I’ve written, made in my life, I’ve written. Not all, but most I would say.

Very few people do bad things because they're bad. They generally do bad things because they think they're the right thing to do, but they're misplaced.

I think there's something about a character facing the huge problems and challenges of the contemporary world and meeting them with - head on with courage, allowing for darkness and mistake, but ultimately always moral. That's incredibly, incredibly inspiring, and that's honestly what I think.

I'd always suspected my face wouldn't fit in drama departments. And it never did!

The one mistake you must never make is to agree to make a film or sign on to film that you don't believe in. Most importantly because it's unfair on that. It's not about you; it's just not fair on that project because you're doing it a profound disservice because you're not serving it - you're uncommitted, ultimately.

One of the things that makes the Bourne movies so exciting, I think, is you do get to go on a journey. Generally, through the franchise, that journey is in Europe.

I've seen a lot of political violence in my life. I know what it looks like. I know what it smells like. I know what motivates young men to do it. I've talked to them about it. I know what victims feel like, you know? I know the abominable effect it has on politics. I know how intractable it is.

To make a film is eighteen months of your life. It's seven days a week. It's twenty hours a day.

I always tell young film-makers, 'Find the song that only you can sing.' It doesn't just come to you. It's trial and error and disappointment before you find, slowly but surely, the confidence to express your film-making identity.