Alex Gibney Quotes & Sayings

“I'm a good learner. I can dig in. I knew nothing about mark-to-market accounting when I started the 'Enron' film.”

“We live in a world where everyone thinks they do the right thing, so they are entitled to do the wrong thing. So ends can justify the means.”

“When I was a kid, I played sports a lot. My mom and dad were divorced, but I hung out in the neighborhood a lot, and it was all about sports. I would be out all day on the sand lot or on the hockey rink. My dad would take me to baseball games, but he worked so hard, and he would always fall asleep.”

“Dialogue between people of differing views is critical for fostering understanding in a democracy.”

“'Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream' is an intentionally angry film. How could it not be when the chance of an infant dying is five times greater on the Bronx Park Avenue than on Manhattan's Park Avenue just across the Harlem River?”

“In the case of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, an issue that is central to the film - torture - is so important that I feel I must say something. Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow have been irresponsible and inaccurate in the way they have treated this issue in their film.”

“Critics can say what they like about the films, but very often, there's a certain expectation of documentaries that they're supposed to be like PowerPoint presentations. I see documentaries as movies. So when I see some critics writing that we could have done without the recreations altogether - well, perhaps.”

“I think of my films as not necessarily political but more moral. Between my father, my stepfather, and my mother - they all felt pretty passionately about the importance of standing up and doing the right thing, and none of them were suck-ups. What motivates me is usually abuse of power.”

“I thought it was a classic David and Goliath story, and I was fully onboard Team WikiLeaks. I was very pro the leaks, barring the redaction issue. But I see WikiLeaks as a publisher.”

“It would be hard to go to your neighbor and say the things people say on the Internet without getting punched out or having your tires slashed.”