Reel Wisdom

“All of life's riddles are answered in the movies." ―Steve Martin

Reel Wisdom collects over 125 timeless quotes from the movies and film characters who have long captured the hearts and minds of all who see them. Assembled and organized into easy-to-use sections, based around themes like love, determination, common sense and more, these quotes offer the sort of guidance, strength and inspiration only found on the silver screen.Sean K Smith is an author, journalist, and screenwriter. A graduate of Harvard and Stanford Universities, he has authored numerous books and articles and written for film and television. He lives in Los Angeles with his two sons.Previous ages had their great thinkers and moral philosophers. Socrates, Augustine, Kant: names you might remember vaguely from a college survey course but probably haven’t thought of since. In the modern era, we also have our ethicists, but their names are part and parcel of our daily lives: Hitchcock, Spielberg, and Disney.

In the 21st Century, we get our moral precepts from the movies—starting from the moment our parents first sat us down to watch Bambi or The Little Mermaid. Who can forget the life lessons imparted by The Wizard of Oz, Frankenstein, or The Godfather? (That’s right: The Godfather). Truth be told, for many of us movies are our main source of information about history, politics, race, sex, relationships, horror, crime, nature, science, and everything else under the sun. It’s safe to say that almost everything we’ve learned, we learned from movies.

The book you are holding in your hands, then, is a kind of pocket encyclopedia of “Movie Morals.” It’s a compendium of epigrams, sayings, observations, quips, statements, adages, aphorisms, axioms, dicta, mottos, and principles (phew!) about life, love, courage, death, sex, and all the other things we humans are fascinated by and obsessed with. Scrambled up to be thought-provoking, of course, but all there.

We like to think we’ve covered all the bases. No doubt there’s one of your personal favorite quotes missing—that’s always the risk with books like this. Sorry to disappoint. But what you may find in its place is some new nugget: a quote or a film that you’ve never heard of before, or a new way of thinking (for you) about life and the world. If we can do that, we will have succeeded.

So read on. Who knew a little book could be so chockful of wisdom? (We did.)

—Excerpt from the Introduction by Sean K. Smith