Howard Hawks Quotes

I try to tell my story as simply as possible, with the camera at eye level.

– Howard Hawks

Too many actors try to get too much out of scenes that they ought to be leaving alone, just doing them quickly and getting the hell out.

– Howard Hawks

I’m a storyteller – that’s the chief function of a director. And they’re moving pictures, let’s make ’em move!

– Howard Hawks

I get a little sick of these New Yorkers who want me to make some psychic thing, like ‘The Left-Handed Gun.’ They don’t know anything about Western history.

– Howard Hawks

I think girls who insult people are very attractive.

– Howard Hawks

I’m such a coward that unless I get a good writer, I don’t want to make a picture.

– Howard Hawks

I guarantee you that two directors that are any good can take the same story, change the name of the characters, change the name of the town, and make an entirely different picture.

– Howard Hawks

When you’ve got some talent, your job is to use it.

– Howard Hawks

You can’t fix a bad script after you start shooting. The problems on the page only get bigger as they move to the big screen.

– Howard Hawks

A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes.

– Howard Hawks

There’s action only if there is danger.

– Howard Hawks

If you want to make pictures and enjoy making them, you better go out and make something that a lot of people want to see. And then they’ll turn you lose and let you make what you want. And then maybe you can do some of the things that you want to do. But as a beginner, you haven’t got a chance.

– Howard Hawks

I made ‘Rio Bravo’ with John Wayne. It worked out pretty well and we both liked it, so a few years later we decided to make it again. Worked out pretty good that time, too.

– Howard Hawks

It’s hard not to think of Jack Ford when you’re making a Western. Hard not to think of him when you’re making any picture.

– Howard Hawks

John Wayne represents more force, more power than anyone else on the screen.

– Howard Hawks

I have a theory that the only way you can be any good is if the camera likes you. If the camera doesn’t like you, you are gone.

– Howard Hawks

The western is the simplest form of drama – a gun, death.

– Howard Hawks