Joe Eszterhas Quotes

• There are no crowds out there demanding to see smoking scenes in movies.

  Joe Eszterhas

• The terrible, diabolic thing with this disease is that you are always looking behind your shoulder every couple months with the most recent checkup to see whether there is any sign of it, and I thank God to say at this point there is not.

  Joe Eszterhas

• The studios have been taken over by marketing people and accountants.

  Joe Eszterhas

• That’s sort of what I felt… I miss drinking, I thought bars were truly holy places.

  Joe Eszterhas

• Politics has become entertainment.

  Joe Eszterhas

• Now on a personal level with things like the California Tax Commission… I really think if people started banding together and saying no to this it could snowball and that could really help.

  Joe Eszterhas

• My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn’t want them to be checking his writings.

  Joe Eszterhas

• Meanwhile, politics is about getting a candidate in front of the public as a star, politics as rock’n’roll, politics as a movie.

  Joe Eszterhas

• I worry that we are approaching a time when that which is shocking is squeezed out by the Stalinism of political correctness.

  Joe Eszterhas

• I was six when we came to this country. When I was 14 or so, I still had a lot of trouble with it.

  Joe Eszterhas

• I was a militant smoker, and in my case, I think I particularly used smoking because what I felt was a kind of politically correct big brother assault on smoking.

  Joe Eszterhas

• I just wanted to make sure that what I write is what appears on screen, to not have some idiot change it on its way to the screen.

  Joe Eszterhas

• I have only one loyalty – to my writing. I never wanted to be the head of a studio or a producer.

  Joe Eszterhas

• I have my own religious bond with the God in my own head.

  Joe Eszterhas

• I have always been fascinated by the corruption of power.

  Joe Eszterhas

• I had read too many memoirs that were written after the writer or the director was past his or her prime.

  Joe Eszterhas

• I always wanted to be a rock’n’roll star.

  Joe Eszterhas

• From what I’ve been able to determine, many of our big stars are addicted to tobacco. They want to smoke in movies for the same reason I smoked as I wrote, which is that they think their performance is going to be better.

  Joe Eszterhas

• From a writing point of view, you now have teams of screenwriters working with a director. What’s lost in the process is the power of that one heart, brain, gut and soul that makes something an original piece of writing.

  Joe Eszterhas

• Fact is we went on to do other things. But we still wanted to do our success like rock’n’roll stars.

  Joe Eszterhas

Joe Eszterhas (23)

Birth:	23rd November, 1944
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Screenwriter

About

József A. "Joe" Eszterhas was born in Csákánydoroszló, Hungary. He is a Hungarian-born American screenwriter, journalist and author. He has worked on 16 films. He was a newspaper reporter for The Plain Dealer. He went on to be a senior editor from 1971 to 1975 for Rolling Stone. He has written several books include: Thirteen Seconds (with Michael Roberts), Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse (Nominations: National Book Award for Contemporary Affairs), Nark, and The Devil's Guide to Hollywood. He has also written a memoirs, entitled Hollywood Animal, American Rhapsody, and Crossbearer. He has written several films include: F.I.S.T., Flashdance, Jagged Edge, Big Shots, Hearts of Fire, Betrayed, Checking Out, Music Box, Basic Instinct, Nowhere to Run, Sliver, Showgirls, Jade, Telling Lies in America, An Alan Smithee Film, and Children of Glory.

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Today's Anniversary - 22nd November

Births

• 1782 - Sophie Swetchine
• 1932 - Robert Vaughan
• 1984 - Scarlett Johansson
• 1927 - Nathan Rosenberg
• 1980 - Shawn Fanning

Deaths

• 1918 - Randolph Bourne
• 1943 - Lorenz Hart
• 1992 - Sterling Price Holloway Jr.
• 1996 - Ray Blanton
• 1988 - Luis Barragan