Best Documentaries Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“I watch television and when that stuff comes on about me, I find it a little bit embarrassing, the documentaries and all that.”

“I tend to gravitate towards sitcoms more and documentaries.”

“People ask us what's the most rock-star thing we've done. Maybe they watch too many '80s documentaries about bands from the '80s. They're like, 'Do you throw TVs out the window?' And I'm like, 'No. I don't even know why anyone did that in the first place.'”

“As with the Trojans or the Tudors, there are many evergreen stories that we come back to again and again. I think history documentaries are as much about the present as they are the past.”

“I am mostly at home and I do my housework, I read and I love watching documentaries. In short, I love staying at home.”

“I am really into crime documentaries.”

“I love every single genre from documentaries, horror, comedy, drama, '80s, classic, I have it all.”

“I never say I make documentaries. I say I make television.”

“I'd like to make documentaries. Way-out documentaries. I'd like to do one on a tour of the U.S.”

“I love making documentaries. But I do like other factual entertainment as well, and I like doing the lighter stuff.”

“'30 for 30s' are amazing. They're little documentaries and can be anywhere from half an hour to an hour-and-a-half - great sports stories.”

“If you're not doing it for the right reasons, then you'd be dumb to be making documentaries.”

“When I made the switch from strictly entertainment news to more of these natural world documentaries, it's really been all about wanting to make saving the world cool.”

“I'd really likely to shoot wildlife documentaries. I watched so many of those as a child, and I'm quite into wildlife and love photography as well, so that's something I'd like to do.”

“I thought that, as a black audience member, I would like to see something that reflected an experience that's not normally exhibited in documentaries, or is so much about black people as victims in this country, and black people not taking control of their own lives and their own destinies.”

“I always thought that life is full of stories and characters that feel like literary stories and characters. So when I started making documentaries, they weren't humble empirical things, just following people around. I was always trying to impose a story.”

“I want to start producing the documentaries and programmes I'm involved with.”

“A lot of documentaries are about something that already happened, but I think people are kind of afraid to let the story find them. It's scary because you might not end up with something good.”

“I would like to do more documentaries.”

“I do really enjoy watching documentaries because it's such an interesting foray into other people's lives.”

“I had heard a lot of key words about Harshad Mehta in books, documentaries, on the Internet, and in the script like his passion, greed, a bit of ego, and confidence.”

“My dad had a dream of his kids reaching the NFL. My older brother was actually the first to make it. His career didn't really last too long, but he always had more passion for documentaries.”

“When I go to the DVD shop, I mostly buy documentaries because you learn a lot from documentaries.”

“Documentary films have always been my passion, I have done documentaries.”

“There's a lot of documentaries out in the world; it sometimes seems as if there's no topic left!”

“I just like documentaries.”

“People have said to me, 'Oh, you are much nicer making documentaries than you were in politics.' So I should be. If you are making a documentary, you are having fun. You are not under any pressure, normally.”

“I watch documentaries and travel the world and see all sorts of life.”

“I love documentaries and TED talks.”

“2018 has been such a fantastic year for me: working on some hard-hitting documentaries, as well as 'Strictly,' has been a real treat.”

“We do documentaries on the history of cinema in between our feature films.”

“Sound is the most important thing on any film, especially documentaries.”

“You make documentaries because you love doing it; it's the only sane reason to make documentaries.”

“I love documentaries. I love the format. I've been doing them for a long time.”

“When you come to documentaries, the stakes are too low for it to be cutthroat. You're all doing it for the right reasons.”

“There's no money in documentaries.”

“I love documentaries. My problem is when the filmmaker becomes the star.”

“From making documentaries all these years, it doesn't feel right to lead someone. In narratives, I'm always trying to shoot as though it's really happening, and I trust my actors are going to make decisions that I'm going to be following. I want to follow them.”

“The documentaries I made were never normal documentaries. They were about subjects I was obsessed with, and I suppose I thought I could sculpt them. What I think I do with my fiction is the same.”

“Once you recognize that all documentaries are performance, it's not a matter of 'if' they should be performance. They are performance, and they are performance precisely where people are playing themselves.”

“My philosophy as a filmmaker is to inform and entertain at the same time. And when I went away from documentaries into miniseries like 'Roots,' I did the reverse. Instead of just entertaining, I want to inform at the same time.”

“Stories, as we're taught in journalism school early on, are told through people. Those stories make our documentaries powerful. You can explore someone's culture, you can explore their experience, you can explore an issue through human beings who are going through it.”

“I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go.”

“I love doing fiction. I love doing performance films and I love doing documentaries that don't have music. I love to shoot and I love to shoot things I'm enthusiastic about.”

“I don't think I'll be making documentaries my whole life.”

“I love documentaries, I like observing real people.”

“I want to do more documentaries and travel to places I haven't been. That is where I think I can be fulfilled.”

“Documentaries have always inspired me in narrative filmmaking.”

“I did documentaries for maybe 10 years before I turned to fiction films.”

“When the world is too much, I slip down a rabbit hole and end up watching documentaries on Henry VIII and his wives or War of the Roses.”

“So I do tend to do documentaries where I can move in and out of them.”

“I think the sheer hell of trying to get a film made; I don't know if it would ultimately be worth it. The sort of format that I have, these TV things, sit somewhere between documentaries and reality shows and entertainment shows and dramas.”

“I don't think there's so much difference between making documentaries and feature films. I think it's even harder to make documentaries.”

“Documentaries can provoke much more than narrative movies.”

“Documentaries for me always felt kind of limiting. I wanted to go bigger. And I also love actors, and I love performance. So feature filmmaking was always the intent.”

“Saying that all documentaries are the same is like saying all foreign films are the same.”

“When I'm actually making a film and trying to find solutions, I like to watch making-of documentaries about huge films, like 'Gladiator.' That couldn't be more apart from what I'm doing, but you see Ridley Scott facing huge problems and fixing them.”

“When I have had a long day at work, I want something to watch that is funny, lighthearted and easy to get into, and reality is that. I'm not really into serious programmes or documentaries.”

“When I took a couple of years to do the documentaries after I left 'American Morning' - what was I gone for, five years? - I didn't feel that I was floating under the radar.”

“I love those documentaries where everyone is fabulous and always perfect.”

“There's so many documentaries out there right now and everything's exposing wrestling.”

“I think making a documentary gets you out and about more, with people. With stand-up, you're talking at people. With documentaries you're talking with people, and you're listening a lot more.”

“My wife likes history and documentaries, but I'm not so keen on them. I generally go and do some work if there's one of those on.”

“I don't normally make documentaries. I'm a drama director. I've made a few short docs, but I don't like talking heads or 'voice of God' narrators.”

“My time in documentaries was very educating, in terms of life experience as well as the filmmaking side of it.”

“Three of the top six documentaries of all time, grossing, are made by me.”

“It's hard to make a living doing documentaries. Frankly, if it takes you five years to do a film, and that's the only film you're doing, you're in trouble.”

“The notion of what is public and what is private has been dissolved. My children see documentaries; they see Instagram. Everyone is very open: it has become less taboo to expose lives.”

“Documentaries make a difference.”

“Did a man really walk on the moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered.”

“I watch documentaries for information. I watch films to be entertained.”

“I feel like a lot of funders of documentaries today want to fund films that have a social message that is going to yield results.”

“The making of documentaries for 'Humanoids From The Deep,' 'Galaxy Of Terror' and 'Forbidden World' are absolutely fascinating.”

“I think that, as a filmmaker, you're always making the same film, regardless of how many different stories you tell. This is the case for me, whether I'm making documentaries or fiction films.”

“When historians write the last pages of their books, and the producers of history documentaries sit down to edit the final minutes of their programmes, there is often a strong urge to look to the future and emphasise the positive.”

“I watch mostly documentaries and things that aren't remotely funny.”

“Documentaries shouldn't just reflect the world: they should try and explain why reality is like it is.”

“Through the documentaries I make, my job is to talk to people and make them feel comfortable and listen to really harrowing stories about things that have happened to them.”

“When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda. If I wanted to do that, I'd make documentaries.”

“It was through watching documentaries on the BBC in the late 1980s that I first became interested in art and history.”

“I suppose making documentaries is like doing journalism on film.”

“I think most documentaries are too long.”

“People in general have a preconceived idea of what prison is, from seeing documentaries or whatever.”

“I had the most incredible English and literature teachers in school, and it really influenced my love of storytelling. It's what made me excited to study journalism in college. I love editorials and documentaries. All of that came from being given the opportunity to lose myself in good writing when I was a kid.”

“All the great novels, all the great films, all the great dramas are fictions that actually tell us the truth about us or about human nature or about human situations without being tied into the minutia of documentary events. Otherwise we might as well just make documentaries.”

“I'm primarily an actor and only make documentaries when I see a story others have missed.”

“I've been producing documentaries on global warming for 20 years and have seen the early warnings of extreme weather events come true.”

“My paid gigs allow me to pay for my documentaries, like a drug habit, I suppose. If I'm lucky enough to be working steady, however, it leaves little time for the documentary hobby.”

“At the heart of the best documentaries, there is a journey of inquiry - someone who travels out into the world, comes back with a story, and who then finds meaning in it, and intrigue; someone who tells you about something you never quite knew before, or in a way you hadn't quite thought about.”

“Documentaries are the first line of education, and the second line of education is dramatization, such as 'The Pacific'.”

“I watch movies occasionally, and I watch documentaries. Virtually nothing else.”

“I really like 'The Three Kings' DVD. I love that movie and all the extra footage and documentaries.”

“I make short films, little documentaries, about the co-evolution of humans and technology.”

“Right now I'm taking a break from hip-hop documentaries. But I would do it if things lined up.”

“I have been portrayed by actors in three television documentaries, two plays, one musical and a film. It's no fun watching yourself being traduced and imitated by an actor.”

“I started in documentaries, and that was a great help to me with improvisation, because with documentaries, you're handed a big lump of footage, and you have to shape it and make it into a story - which I love doing.”

“Documentaries are a form of journalism.”

“I auditioned for 'Loving' two years before we started shooting, so in the hopes that I would be playing Mildred, I watched it again. Also it's one of the best documentaries I've seen. I found this couple interminably fascinating; even if I didn't get the part, I just wanted to know more about them and their story.”

“My roots are documentaries.”

“I only ever wanted to do history, and make documentaries.”