John Hughes quotes:

I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, 'cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!

When I did 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', I had the idea on Monday and the following Tuesday it was in budget at Paramount. I couldn't walk.

My heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso, because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on.

My early prose style - this is so embarrassing - was sort of a suburban, Presbyterian knockoff of Woody Allen.

Fantastic! Right in the middle of that long stretch between Christmas and Spring Break, your coats are getting dirty, everything's dark, dingy - what a great time for a movie!

I was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw 'Doctor Zhivago' every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater.

At the time I came along, Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!

A nerd will be a nerd all his life. When we did The Nerd Book at National Lampoon, the nerds got picked up as if there were a lot of them at every school - and there aren't. Maybe two. There are many more geeks. A geek is a guy who has everything going for him, but he's just too young. He's got the software, but he doesn't have the hardware yet.

It's like being at the kids' table at Thanksgiving - you can put your elbows on it, you don't have to talk politics... no matter how old I get, there's always a part of me that's sitting there.

Why watch someone kissing when people really close their eyes when they kiss?

Many filmmakers portray teenagers as immoral and ignorant, with pursuits that are pretty base... But I haven't found that to be the case. I listen to kids. I respect them... Some of them are as bright as any of the adults I've met.

I usually listen to surf music, not much instrumental music, and when I was younger I listened to jazz.

I'm a former hippie, so clothes are important to me - your clothes defined you in that period. I guess clothes still defines people. But, I change a lot. I'm in my Brooks Brothers period now.

The best sounds a kid will get is in a movie theater, with huge speakers, turned up loud. I always mix my music really loud. I don't care if you don't hear all the dialogue. The audience are not idiots.

I so desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away.

When I go to a concert, I can't believe that people pay lots of money to see a band that they obviously like and then they dance the whole time.

I happen to go for the simplest, most ordinary things. The extraordinary doesn't interest me. I'm not interested in psychotics. I'm interested in the person you don't expect to have a story. I like Everyman.

I stumbled into this business, I didn't train for it. I yelled 'Action!' on my first two movies before the camera was turned on.

I don't consider myself qualified to do a movie about international intrigue - I seldom leave the country.

I used to judge the quality of music by whether I could make a 90-minute cassette and not repeat any artists.

I like young actors because they're so unspoiled, not like some of those actors who are about half an hour into their fifteen minutes of fame by the time they get to me.

My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the baby boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

I so desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away. That's why I tend to work with the same people; I really befriend them.

I don't think I'm making any great statements, and I certainly don't think I'm making art.

People forget that when you're 16, you're probably more serious than you'll ever be again. You think seriously about the big questions.

I don't think of kids as a lower form of the human species.

A geek is a guy who has everything going for him but he's just too young. He's got the software but he doesn't have the hardware yet.

I find that screen kissing wears very thin very quickly.

We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.

Maitre D' : I appreciate your understanding. Ferris: Don't think twice. It's understanding that makes it possible for people like us to tolerate a person like yourself.

At the time I came along, Hollywoods idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!

Rock 'n' roll is a young form. People over twenty- five ruin it. This whole censorship thing has come about because old people are playing with a form that is essentially young and rebellious. Do you know how brilliant it was for The Beatles to break up when they did?.

It would be a nice problem to have. It would mean we had reached the final. I'd like to think common sense would prevail and we'd have the use of both of them.

A man's tie should never be louder than his wife.

Advertising was fairly simple work, and I really just wanted a job where I could sit and write every day and not get fired for it like I had at other jobs, but it was fun.

I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it.

The outpouring of generosity is overwhelming. People across the Lehigh Valley are moved by the images they are seeing on TV and they want to know how they can help.

Most of my characters are romantic rather than sexual. I think that's an essential difference in my pictures. I think they are more accurate in portraying young people as romantic - as wanting a relationship, an understanding with a member of the opposite sex more than just physical sex.

Those who say 'you only live once' have never read a book.