James Lipton Quotes

Geniuses always think it’s easier than we make it out to be.

And I thought if I don’t pre-interview – first of all, we couldn’t afford it – but the second thing was it would force me to do my own research, which takes two weeks.

And I thought, my God, there’s an off chance that they will say something that’s really worth preserving and there is one way to do that and I knew what it was because I come from television.

Because – Bobby Lewis said this once to us in class, the better you get, the less credit you’ll get. Because the better you are, the more it looks like walking and talking and everybody thinks they can walk and talk.

Comedians don’t laugh. They’re too busy analyzing why it’s funny or not.

Hackman is able to live in the moment which means there is nothing for him at that split second than what is occurring in the scene.

I criticize those critics. The reason being that they’re doing one of the worst things that ever can be done to an actor, which is to say, Look, you do what we like you to do or else.

I did get Tom Hanks to say, Life is just a box of chocolates.

I had something called the back of the chair test. Where I sit, we don’t sit like you and I do. I can see a sliver right behind them and they come out and they sit like this like god students and they don’t touch the back of the chair.

I think that anybody’s craft is fascinating. A taxi driver talking about taxi driving is going to be very, very interesting.

I thought we would have at most an audience of 5,000 devotees because I made the decision to stick to craft, not to gossip, not to be interested in any of the juicy stuff that they talk about on other shows, but stick to the question of craft.

I wanted when we began this to have a conversation, the kind that you’re able to have, and the only way I knew how to do it was not to have a pre-interview.

I was dealing with craft, and that’s the surprising thing, the number of people who have literally broken down on our stage, because when you’re talking about the thing that is most important to someone, they’re liable to feel something strong.

I was originally going to be a lawyer, and the only thing I remember from the art of cross-examination is – you can see this one coming up Sixth Avenue – never ask a question the answer to which you do not know.

I’ll tell you why, I don’t invite the ones I don’t like.

The foundation for film acting is stage acting.

If I were to ask you for example right now to go back with me and define those moments in your life that shaped you as a person and you began to reexamine them, something would happen.

It can be summed up in one sentence. Does this person have something to teach my students? No one has ever let us down.

Olivier was another case of a genius, who couldn’t understand why anybody would have any trouble doing this, because for him it came so easily.

The definition of genius, really, should be that that person can do what the rest of us have to learn how to do.