Stanley Donen Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“I think of myself as a meat-and-potatoes kind of director.”

“When Fred Astaire danced, everything in this world was perfect.”

“The funniest thing is not who influenced me positively, but who influenced me negatively. I had such an aversion to what Busby Berkeley did; in my early formative years, I thought it was terrible. Now, I think it's wonderful. But then, I wanted to do anything but what Busby Berkeley did.”

“There was never any point in my life when I wasn't called Mr. Donen. I'm told my first words were, 'Call me Mr. Donen.' But I suspect that's apocryphal. My mother, Mrs. Donen, tended to exaggerate.”

“What we think about Paris is a part of how we feel about it. Our idea of Paris is our idea and we don't know that that's not necessarily the way it really is. It feels so real.”

“You know, sound was still a fairly new thing when I came into movies. And the reason musicals happened is because of sound. They could put music in the picture! That's how it all began.”

“You see, it took me so long, it was such a struggle, to move myself out of musicals - because I had had a success, nobody wanted to allow me to direct a non-musical picture. It was so hard. And the only way I could get it going was to become a producer myself.”