Jack Valenti Quotes (35 Quotes)

There isn't anything in the world that can't be made better.

We want to tell American parents that they and they alone have total power to control every hour of television programming that comes into their home.

In the last several years, piracy has been the dominant issue that has consumed my life,

Mr. Rove wanted to come out and have a meeting with the top executives of the studios, the television networks, theater owners, to see what ideas we have that would enable this war to be fought on every front, ... The ideas will be lofted at this meeting on Sunday, and then I'll see to it, with my colleagues' help, that we transform these ideas into action.

There was no mention of content, ... The White House and its representatives did not say anything about that because they knew that was not the subject that was up for either debate or suggestion. Content was off the table.

Sen. Stevens asked me if I would attend a work-forum on ratings systems, how they work and how they were developed. I told him I would be there.

The digital world, the world of virtual reality ... is going to be part of the embrace of this great, new cooperative venture.

We're hard at work trying to make parents better understand that they have total control today over what individual programs they allow into their homes. We want to show a closer rapport between the TV ratings system and the movie ratings system.

If movies are causing moral decay, then crime ought to be going up, but crime is going down.

The government cannot devise and enforce it's own ratings systems. For a variety of First Amendment reasons it just can't be done, ... Indeed, the FTC report clearly states there are serious First Amendment problems.

Yet one thing has not changed, ... A moviemaker's single indispensable asset -- as elementally essential now as it was in the Golden Years -- is the Story. And that means studio executives of this era must share the same DNA as industry pioneers in at least one particular -- the ability to find a narrative with heart and heat.

Film-makers must decide what story to tell and how to tell it.

No one today knows what is indecent.

That's the primary thing I learned, you cannot fight a war without public support. And the second thing is, you cannot, no matter what mighty army you are conquering a foreign land, you cannot win against an insurgency that springs from the population with their traditions and their religion and their culture. Never has been done in history.

That's just wrong, ... Some people in marketing have stepped over the line from reasonable to unacceptable.

The public's nerves are raw and edgy. You have to be discreet and understanding about the films you are showing.

The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone.

Every parent in America has the total power to control all television programming that is dispatched to their home today.

Frankly I will confess to this panel that privately I take issue every now and then with the rating of a film, and I think the rating board might have erred. But if there are errors in the accuracy of a movie rating, it is a matter of a judgment call and not an exile in integrity,

To have something happen that never before in our history have we ever borne witness to or imagined, that hits very deep in the entrails of this country.

you begin to torment and torture the First Amendment.

This was about contributing Hollywood's creative imagination and their persuasion skills to help in this war effort so that one day Americans can lead normal lives again,

Foreign capital to build new cinemas will help modernize China's aging cinema infrastructure, attract Chinese consumers back into cinemas, and increase demand for U.S. films.

Serious efforts are underway to try to bring the domestic problems under control.

The same percentage also report they do not want government to step in and fix this problem. From these facts about the public's revealed opinion, we present a common sense plan that will convey to American parents that they have, right now, all the weaponry they need to control all the TV programming that enters their home.

to tell us what kind of movies to make.

This is not a get-even book. There may be three or four people I vent a little spleen on, but it takes too much energy to be vengeful or hateful.

I don't know any other business that tells you not to go in and buy their product.

To endure in a volatile, unpredictable arena populated by egos the size of small planets is not an inconsiderable achievement,

Speechwriters have a unique distinction in Washington -- none of us has ever been indicted.

In the last 15 years, 70 to 77 percent of all parents with children under 13 find this ratings system very useful to fairly useful ... in helping parents make their own decisions.

When people make up invitation lists, they are in the top 10.

The only group in America that deserves to scrutinize what we are doing... are parents.

I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently, because Lyndon Johnson is my president.

I don't care if you call it AO for Adults Only, or Chopped Liver or Father Goose. Your movie will still have the stigma of being in a category that's going to be inhabited by the very worst of pictures.