Top 60 Robert Rodríguez Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit.”

— Robert Rodríguez

2. “Changing the game is a mindset.”

— Robert Rodríguez

3. “When you take technology and mix it with art, you always come up with something innovative.”

— Robert Rodríguez

4. “Creativity, not money, is used to solve problems.”

— Robert Rodríguez

5. “Don’t look at all at what other people are doing. Think of what you’re doing as completely fresh because if you imitate you’re dead.”

— Robert Rodríguez

6. “Data scientists are statisticians because being a statistician is awesome and anyone who does cool things with data is a statistician.”

— Robert Rodríguez

7. “I wish I could freeze time or go back in time and watch my kids grow up all over again because it is just going by too fast.”

— Robert Rodríguez

8. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in a dream world, because it doesn’t always seem too logical how things work out.”

— Robert Rodríguez

9. “If you’re just creative, you’ll always have to rely on technical people. If you’re creative and technical, you’re unstoppable.”

— Robert Rodríguez

10. “Only by seeking challenges can we hope to find the best in ourselves.”

— Robert Rodríguez

11. “It’s easier making a smaller film like El Mariachi. There are no budget worries because there is no budget. There is no crew problem because there is no crew. And if you screw up, no one is around to see you screw up – so it’s no longer a screw up.”

— Robert Rodríguez

12. “Don’t be told something is impossible. There’s always a way.”

— Robert Rodríguez

13. “If you want to be a rock star, you’re not going to just walk on stage. You gotta go practice in the garage until your fingers bleed. I always say that – the same with writing and the same with filmmaking – if it’s really your passion, you’ve just got to stick with it and do it.”

— Robert Rodríguez

14. “Yeah, I was always a big fan of noir.”

— Robert Rodríguez

15. “A movie goes from several stages, from idea to script. As you continue shooting, you will make some adjustments. You’re constantly adjusting. It’s like a piece of music. You’re constantly trying to make it better.”

— Robert Rodríguez

16. “I always wanted to be a stay-at-home dad making art, making movies.”

— Robert Rodríguez

17. “You create superheroes to take care of problems that can’t really be solved another way.”

— Robert Rodríguez

18. “Everything I’ve done has always been my own made up world with its own rules and its own made up stories.”

— Robert Rodríguez

19. “The only thing I ever wanted to do is never have to work a day in my life.”

— Robert Rodríguez

20. “Exploitation films were famous for taking an issue an exploiting it because they could move much faster than a studio could. If there was any hot topic, they would run out and make a quick movie and make a buck on it, by changing it around and using it, in some way, to give some relevance.”

— Robert Rodríguez

21. “When you go off in the world and make your life, and you come back to your home town, and you find your old high-school friends driving in the same circles, doing the same things, that’s what Hollywood’s like. It’s a little block, little town. It doesn’t really grow or change.”

— Robert Rodríguez

22. “When you make an exploitation film, you always want to have a real issue. That’s how they were always done.”

— Robert Rodríguez

23. “Don’t give me any money, don’t give me any people, but give freedom, and I’ll give you a movie that looks gigantic.”

— Robert Rodríguez

24. “Creative people are notoriously the slowest to adopt new technology.”

— Robert Rodríguez

25. “People don’t live in Austin to work, they work to live there.”

— Robert Rodríguez

26. “I don’t think anyone can be more of a predator than a human being.”

— Robert Rodríguez

27. “It’s such a drag to make a movie.”

— Robert Rodríguez

28. “Ever director has at least 10 bad films in them.”

— Robert Rodríguez

29. “When you use the same actors a lot, you get to know them and you realize that one movie can’t explore all the talent that they have. You really have to give them several different kinds of roles, in completely different movies, to push them and to push yourself.”

— Robert Rodríguez

30. “Any time you do action and horror, you’ve always got to try to find a way to make it fresh for the audience, but also for yourself, and there are so many different ways to freak people out and create tension.”

— Robert Rodríguez

31. “Hollywood wants to own everything. I don’t want to own anything. I don’t want people just to make content, I want to empower and teach them to create content they own that they can exploit in any medium.”

— Robert Rodríguez

32. “Make DV movies so you can learn how to make films, but don’t try to distribute them until they are fantastic.”

— Robert Rodríguez

33. “I want to push technology boundaries to be more efficient.”

— Robert Rodríguez

34. “I collect a lot of art.”

— Robert Rodríguez

35. “Television series always have a lot of characters because you want people to identify with someone on the show, who will be your eyes.”

— Robert Rodríguez

36. “You ask any moviemaker what their favorite movie experience was, and they’ll say it was one of the first ones, where everyone had to pitch in and do everything together, and you had to struggle.”

— Robert Rodríguez

37. “Low budgets force you to be more creative. Sometimes, with too much money, time and equipment, you can over-think. My way, you can use your gut instinct.”

— Robert Rodríguez

38. “I realized that everything I do is fantasy, whether it is an adult movie or a kids movie.”

— Robert Rodríguez

39. “I like to keep my budgets at a certain price when I work for someone else, and even more so now that I’m working for myself, and use new technologies to deliver films that look like they have high production levels.”

— Robert Rodríguez

40. “Anyone who can only write about themselves or their life experiences, in my mind, isn’t a very good writer.”

— Robert Rodríguez

41. “I have so many friends who don’t know how to cook.”

— Robert Rodríguez

42. “When you put on the glasses in a 3-D movie they just kind of sit there and you forget about them.”

— Robert Rodríguez

43. “I was a cartoonist when I was at university, but I decided to go into movie making knowing that I could still draw by doing movies, design work, story boards, and such.”

— Robert Rodríguez

44. “Your mind just goes to the craziest idea to lure people into the theater, and then you write your script around those elements.”

— Robert Rodríguez

45. “I kind of like working fast.”

— Robert Rodríguez

46. “If you create a good story that has a lot of story value I think audiences like that. It’s why they stick with the same TV show over and over.”

— Robert Rodríguez

47. “Really, children will support anything that is empowering to them.”

— Robert Rodríguez

48. “Very few people have a lot of time to dedicate to one hobby. I was fortunate to have started so young, because when you’re young you have nothing but time. Hours and hours to burn up on something as silly as a movie.”

— Robert Rodríguez

49. “I try to remind people, whether you have a growth manager or a value manager, you’re going to go through cycles where you think you have a village idiot.”

— Robert Rodríguez

50. “It’s rare for the studios to find a filmmaker who wants to make a family film. To find someone that has an idea, embraces it, has kids and wants to make something exciting – well, they don’t see that too often.”

— Robert Rodríguez