“I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.”

“To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I'm writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I'm going to play for the opening sequence.”

“Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.”

“I've never written a movie, I'm not in the movie business. I go out to L.A. and I'm like everyone else wandering around in a daze hoping I see movie stars. I write the novels that the movies are based on, and that feels like enough of a job for me.”

“January is the garbage can of movies in America, directly after all the Oscar contenders have been out.”

“When I make a film I'm away from home for two to three months. So I want my kids to look at my films one day and say, I love his movies, I love his choices-because he loved them.”

“I want to make movies about my country from my point of view.”

“You make movies for the people. If critics happen to like them too, well, that's a home run.”

“Even though I make those movies, I find myself wishing that more of those magic moments could happen in real life.”

“I was never into the popular school or clique or anything. Then I started doing movies when I was in high school, so then I got popular. Then the girls paid attention to you who didn't before.”

“I don't get it when you get so much openness about the way movies are made, and the special effects and the behind-the-scenes stuff and all of that. I can't help but feel like this reduces it a little bit.”

“'Little Miss Sunshine' snowballed. It was a tiny movie. We shot it in 30 days, and it was really fun to do, but it was one of those small movies that you don't hold out huge hope for.”

“If people are constantly reading about you, and you're overexposed, they've got no reason to go see your movies. Also, it's not pleasant or nice to have your privacy invaded.”

“When I go into making a movie, personally, I don't try to bring other pieces of movies with me.”

“It is odd there are many movies with many men. But generally movies have one woman, or maybe the older woman and the younger girl.”

“For a number of years, I'd been around the kind of people who financed movies and the kind of people who are there to make the deals for movies. But I'd always had this naive idea that everybody wants to make movies as good as they can be, which is stupid.”

“Quite often - a lot of the work I had done had been extensively with women. Most especially in the theater, but also quite often in the movies. That has its own delights, and maybe pitfalls too.”

“I make movies that nobody will see. I've made movies that even I have never seen.”

“The thing about movies these days is that the commerce end of it is so inflated and financiers are just expecting this enormous return on their investment.”

“Hollywood and the recording industry argue that current law permits the copying of songs and movies, and sharing them on the Internet. This enables young people to grow up learning how to steal.”

“And I believe that you never be limited in what you do, so I like to do movies, I like to do television.”