Brett Ratner quotes:

When I was 13, Eddie Murphy was to me what Chris Tucker was to 13-year-olds when I made 'Rush Hour.' And 'Rush Hour' really came out of the fact that I grew up watching 'Beverly Hills Cop' and '48 Hrs.'

Miami Beach - that's where I grew up, in a middle-class Jewish family led by my maternal grandfather. Me, my great-grandmother - a Holocaust survivor, who was my roommate - my grandparents, my mom and her brother all shared a four-bedroom house.

There's no difference between a tacky Jew from Miami and a rap star. They both want the Cadillac and the Rolex with the diamonds.

I'm not invited to the Vanity Fair dinner where they watch the Oscars - or even the Oscars themselves - so I sit at home and watch it with a bunch of close friends.

I got a Super 8 camera when I was eight years old, and I just wanted to tell stories - I love telling stories.

I fear God and respect God and love God.

Before I did 'Rush Hour,' I was a big fan of Jackie Chan movies and I had seen all of them.

I've watched 'Being There' over 50 times, and every time I watch it, I love every frame. I just wish I had directed it myself.

There's no greater feeling than people coming up to me and going, "Man, my father was dying, and we went to see Rush Hour, and it was the greatest night we had in years together. We sat in that theater and we laughed for two hours without stopping. That was just a great memory that I had before my father died."

I love 'Guitar Hero,' and I think it's a part of pop culture.

Producing is making films without having to work sometimes. It's still making films, but it's a different job.

People can criticise all day long, I think I've proven myself, I think I deliver. And I agree, box office does not mean a movie's good, but I feel like I'm making good movies and I'm delivering in box office.

In my public life, I'm just a guy who enjoys having fun.

They say your childhood influences your tastes and interests, or your approach if you're an artist. So what you create, whatever you saw, whatever your childhood was like - it influences how you're going to end up.

Listening is harder than just acting. Listening is the hardest part.

I used to date Olivia Munn.. when she was Lisa. That was the problem. She wasn't Asian back then.

My mom had me when she was 16, and I was an only child, which is probably why I received a lot of love and didn't miss that my father wasn't around.

At the end of the day, audiences just want to laugh and be entertained. They want to escape from their reality, and that's why we make movies, to get people to escape from the realities.

I love movie directors. I don't care who it is.

Having love in your heart doesn't count for much if what comes out of your mouth is ugly and bigoted.

I learn from every movie I do because on every movie I have a different experience.

I would love a robot butler.

I want to print books by people in the film industry.

In this day and age, you need a lot of patience if you are in the movie business.

I love that feeling of going into a packed theater.

I've been a book collector since I was young, since I was a kid.

You can't reinvent the wheel. You've got to just take the best from all the other shows and try to make it work, because there's the "live show Gods" that dictate if there are going to be any surprises, if there's a very commercial film that's a Best Picture. There are a lot of things that are out of my control, but I do my best.

Would it be nice to win a film award one day? Yes. But the critics are going to have to wait till I'm ready. Right now, my gift is making big movies that audiences want to see.

When you're fearless, you take more risks because you're less conscious of failure or what can go wrong.

I went to a public high school and most of the comedy was coming from the black kids and the Asian kids and the Hispanic kids. And, the coolest kids to me where always the black kids. They were always fashion forward and they always dressed the coolest. They were always the best dancers, and just the coolest people.

I'm constantly being visually stimulated.

When I do short films, I try to do something completely out of my comfort zone, out of my element.

'Vacation' means titillating my taste buds.

Woody Allen is in his '70s and he's making movies, so I look forward to getting there.

I hate the iPhone. I love the BlackBerry - BlackBerry wins in my opinion. The iPhone is a toy.

I'm not tied to budgets. I'm tied to the story that I want to tell, and how much it's going to cost is up to whatever the economic situation of the studio is.

Do I have a small movie in me? Yeah, probably, when I'm 60. But I'm not Hal Ashby, I'm not Roman Polanski. I'm true to myself. Whether you like it or not.

Vacation' means titillating my taste buds.

I learn more from the audience than I can from anybody else. Not from what they write on the scorecards, but how they respond to the movie while they're watching it - where they laugh and where they react.

When you're the director, you kinda do all the work.

I don't have any regrets.

Less money sometimes allows you to be more creative.

Michael Jackson doesn't really belong on this planet. He's the most important figure in the history of music. He'll be remembered far longer than George Bush will. 200 years from now, people will be talking about Michael Jackson, and no one's going to mention George Bush.

I love everything black, because black is cool. When something crosses over, people are like, "Oh, this is a crossover." First of all, there is no urban anymore. Pop culture is black. White kids are dressing like black kids. It's all crossed the lines now. The way I understand it is, everything black is cool. When it crosses over to white, that means it's going from cool to uncool. That's what crossover is.

I ask my assistants if they're retarded all the time. When the camera is on you, of course, actors have the ability to make it real. For me, if I'm not talking, it is a problem. I have so much more respect for actors after being in front of the camera, and I realize that the hardest part is when you're not talking. Listening is harder than just acting. Listening is the hardest part.

You can't show a four-hour movie in a theater, really.

Whoever writes a bad review, I put their name on a list, and they're going to get taken care of one day down the road. Otherwise, I don't let it bother me. The truth is, these are review-proof movies. The audiences are going to see it. My audience, our audience, isn't reading Esquire magazine to see if my movie is good or not. They just want to laugh, to be entertained, and lose themselves.

I'd want to marry Cate Blanchett, date Kate Bosworth, and spend the weekend with Elisha Cuthbert.

When critics or people judge, I think it's harder to make a commercial, pop movie than it is to make a pretentious art film. It's harder to reach millions of people and satisfy them and make them happy. These films kind of get ghettoized, this genre because there are so many big, big movies that are such big hits, but aren't any good. The audiences, they're not judging the style of the director, or the execution of the film. They're just looking to be entertained. They want to escape from their reality, and that's why we make movies, to get people to escape from the realities.

I'm not going to turn down an Oscar, but I'm not strategizing for one.

I'm definitely not a nerd.

Movies are the biggest export in the world, the biggest American export. It influences people all over the world. Music and movies. That's what's exciting about what we do, the fact that it's so global. It brings people together. People don't have to understand the language to laugh at actors. They're going to laugh even though they don't understand what they're saying. Cause they're seeing it.

Everyone who knows me knows that I don't have a prejudiced bone in my body.

Movies are the biggest export in the world, the biggest American export. It influences people all over the world.

I did New York, I Love You which is a very personal film for me. My most personal film, but it's not like a film I've ever made. I would never do that film as a feature, for instance, because it's not very commercial of an idea.

Producing is making films without having to work sometimes. It's still making films, but it's a different job. When you're the director, you kinda do all the work. I'm actually going tonight to check the prints of my movie even though the premiere's tomorrow night.

I'm a laugher and a lover of comedy.

I never dreamed I would be producing the Oscars. That was a huge deal for me.

I look for stuff that I'm passionate about.

The producer can put something together, package it, oversee it, give input. I'm the kind of producer that likes to take a back seat and let the director run with it. If he needs me, I'm there for him. As a director, I like to have the producer there with me. As a producer, I don't want to be there because I happen to be a director first and foremost, I don't want to "that guy."

I personally can watch an eight-hour documentary on Woody Allen because I'm fascinated by him. But, an audience can't really sit through more than two and a half hours on any movie. It doesn't matter if Marlon Brando came back from the dead. It's just impossible.

I want people to see my movies. My talent, my sensibilities are what people want to see in the movies. While I have the talent to make the kind of movies people want to see I want to continue to do that, keep making big pictures and make what I love. I'm really just making the films I want to see. There's not a strategy.

I've worked with a hundred of the biggest artists in the world, from Madonna to Mariah Carey, and Michael Jackson is just beyond. He's at a whole other level, spiritually. He's got the God spot. Everyone has it, everyone has that God spot, but it's just the way he's in tune with it. He has it. It's right there, and when he starts to sing, God has just opened it up for him. That's why he's not comfortable around people and things, because he's just such a unique - he feels blessed just to be himself. "I can't believe I'm Michael Jackson."

My movies are pretty tight and they're pretty well-paced. I'm not one to make long movies. I don't dwell on stuff.

I think taking the biggest star in India and the biggest star in America, and putting them together in a movie that starts in America and ends up in India, or starts in India and goes to America. I think it would be a buddy cop formula.

I'm trying to be a little bit more mature about my choices and think about what I want to direct next, instead of just jumping into a movie 'cause I want to do it.

You've got to think about how to do things for the right price. You have to shoot in different places to be creative and get tax rebates.