Ed Lee Quotes

Lately I've been suffocating. Chan Young is my air, without him beside me, am I able to breathe?

We stand tallest when we stoop to help others.

Some old guy once said that the meaning of life is that it ends.

Plan A is to hitch a ride out of here. But if they want a war, then plan B is to win it.

I just felt from personal observation that there is nothing more dislocated or alienated than a lifelong military person trying to cope in civilian life. It's like two completely separate planets.

I think my books come out very visual, which is an obvious consequence.

I felt alienated by the experience and decided to stay away from corporate employment.

For me the end of a book is just as exciting as it is for a reader.

I always wanted to be in the world of entertainment. I just love the idea of an audience being happy with what I am doing. Writing is showbusiness for shy people. That's how I see it.

A calm environment is for after I finish work.

Reacher said, "So here's the thing Brett. Either you take your hand off my chest, or I'll take it off your wrist.

Now they broke my toothbrush, I don't own anything.

My mother still calls me Jim and that is about it. Everyone else calls me Lee. My wife calls me whatever.

I love Italian food but that's too generic a term for what's available now: you have to narrow it down to Tuscan, Sicilian, and so on.

Lone women shouldn't stop in the middle of nowhere for giant unkempt strangers with duct tape on their faces.

I don't need validation, recognition or praise. What I need are facts and the facts are that one of my books gets sold, somewhere in the world, every second.

I've discovered writers by reading books left in airplane seats and weird hotels.

It's always tense when you move a character from a book to the screen. Always tense.

Most actors are small, anyway - at least compared to me.

I know I'm smarter than an armadillo

All of us write wish fulfillment.

I'd been a thriller reader all my life.

Practically any Western has a homesteader in trouble, and a mysterious rider shows up off the range, solves the problem over two or three days, and then rides off into the sunset.

Full of thrills and tension - but smart and human too.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

Good advertising is a dialog with people.

If you'd put it in a Powerpoint deck don't put it in your ad

The only reason you should move to a new job is if you are not getting the opportunity to do what you want to do and what you believe you can do.

When you open an Apple product it's like a religious experience.

Throughout history, the technology always comes first. It's just technology for a while, until the day we artists inherit it.

I found my own way of doing things.

Steve [Jobs] is unique. There aren't many clients that are like that. You have one guy that you really work for. That's very rare.

[In 2011 on Steve Jobs] He was the most amazing person I have ever know. He was a genius. He was an innovator. He was the best client we ever had. He was my friend.

Advertising can be a very frustrating business.

When NBC News first assigned me to the Barack Obama campaign, I must confess my knees quaked a bit....I wondered if I was up to the job. I wondered if I could do the campaign justice.

I want to go to places that are unexpected of me, because people really think they have me pegged. I want to do something different, like maybe do a space movie or a musical.

Trust is hard to get from actors, and for me to give to actors.

I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.

I'm not tough when it comes to people criticizing the people that I protect, and those are the actors. It makes them scared to do it again for another director.

My philosophy has always been, you don't put your name in front of a movie.

I think that when you have audacity, you will get polarization.

I like all my work equally. I look at the projects as children. I look at the experience more than the end result.

Being the first person to go to college that really related to me from the movie [The Butler] because being black and going to college everyone puts so much hope into you.

Doing charity work is always cool. It's always a good thing.

I think I can connect with an audience because I know what it's like to be on the other side of it and I really remember all of that.

I overthink a lot of things.

Writing on the road is a passion of mine.

My music comes from my emotion, always.

I'm not interested in just putting out one hit.

I'm not the guy that thinks I'm a perfect singer.