Oliver Stone

Film & Theater USA 1946 100 quotes

Conspiracy chronicler of JFK, Stone's polemics sparked quotable political debates.

Most quoted

"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind."

— from Wall Street (film), 1987

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

— from Platoon (film), 1986

"The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."

— from Natural Born Killers (film), 1994

All quotes by Oliver Stone (100)

Editing is where the film is made.

Interview 1985

The American dream is alive, but it's mutated.

On Wall Street 1987

Conspiracy theories? Sometimes they're just facts waiting to be uncovered.

JFK Press 1991

Directors must have vision, or they're lost.

Speech 2000

The Cold War was a time of paranoia and power plays.

Book Excerpt 2012

I film what I feel passionately about.

Interview 1995

Salvador showed the horrors of civil war.

On Salvador 1986

Truth is stranger than fiction, especially in politics.

Personal Reflection 2010

Any Given Sunday is about teamwork and life's battles.

Film Script 1999

The establishment fears real journalism.

Interview 2004

My films are my letters to the world.

Speech 1988

Reaganomics was trickle-down failure.

Book 2012

Storytelling is the essence of humanity.

Interview 1992

I survived Vietnam; it changed me forever.

Memoir Excerpt 2003

Natural Born Killers critiques media sensationalism.

Film Commentary 1994

Presidents are puppets in many ways.

On Nixon 1995

Filmmaking is a collaborative madness.

Professional Observation 1998

The world needs more whistleblowers.

Interview on Snowden 2014

Life's a battlefield; choose your fights wisely.

On Any Given Sunday 1999

I direct with my gut, edit with my brain.

Interview 1989