Paul Thomas Anderson Quotes

No, really. Just do it. You have some kind of weird reasons that are okay.

Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.

I really subscribe to that old adage that you should never let the audience get ahead of you for a second. So if the film's abrasive and wrongfoots people then, y'know, that's great. But I hope it involves an audience.

I guess what I like in my movies is where you see a character change by maybe two degrees as opposed to the traditional movie change of ninety degrees. I guess that always feels false to me in movies because that doesn't truly happen. Around me, at least in the life I live, I guess I don't see people change ninety or a hundred degrees. I see them change in very small increments. I think it's just a monitor I might have on myself as a writer to not make any false scenes.

My dad was this sort of avant-garde guy who did all kinds of weird things. He was a true original and anybody who met him never forgot him.

It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called 'Rule Of The Bone.' I didn't do a very good job. I didn't really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.

I remember being taught in school that you would underline things that you liked. I remember just underlining everything as a kid, thinking, 'This has all gotta be important!' I would just underline the whole thing!

So with 'There Will Be Blood,' I didn't even really feel like I was adapting a book. I was just desperate to find stuff to write.

Well I'd really love to work with Robert De Niro, because he's still the most talented actor out there.

If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you'd be the first person in the history of the world.

No matter how many times you do it, you don't get used to the sadness - for me at least - of coming to the end of a film.

I don't want to be the angry guy.

I don't want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry ... to have you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these ... people.
[laughs]

I'm not really a Sundance baby, but they helped me so much I feel I have to acknowledge it.

I always had a dream about trying to make a movie that had no dialogue in it, that was just music and pictures. I still haven't done it yet, but I tried to get close in the beginning.

It's so hard to do anything that doesn't owe some kind of debt to what Stanley Kubrick did with music in movies. Inevitably, you're going to end up doing something that he's probably already done before. It always seem like we're falling behind whatever he came up with. 'Singin' in the Rain' in Clockwork Orange - that was the first time I became so aware of music in movies. So no matter how hard you try to do something new, you're always following behind.

I am always looking for that nuance, that moment of truth, and you can't really do that fast.

I don't get a sense of American pride. I just get a sense that everyone is here, battling the same thing - that around the world everybody's after the same thing, just some minor piece of happiness each day.

There's a lot for screenwriters to steal from songwriters, in terms of getting to the point.

I write from my stomach.

How does Forrest Gump have sex? What could be more of a revelation about a character than watching them have sex? That says a lot about them, how they touch another person in bed.

My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father's first marriage who were rock 'n' roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture.

You have to be a brat in order to carve out your parameters, and you have to be a monster to anyone who gets in your way. But sometimes it's difficult to know when that's necessary and when you're just being a baby, throwing your rattle from the cage.

I have a feeling, one of those gut feelings, that I'll make pretty good movies the rest of my life.

I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will.

I don't miss scenes at all the way that I used to miss them when I was younger making a film. It's actually quite fun to get rid of them now.

I had the standard movie geek childhood, because for as long as I can remember, all I wanted to do was make movies.

Crazy is so hard to play, there's nothing you can really tell an actor.

I'm completely aware of the fact that I'm a control freak.

You know, I'm really not that competent at describing things musically.

I think my job is to try and be as honest as I can with what is in my mind and how I feel - I think that's what you're supposed to do, if you're a good writer. So I try to do that. I know I do that. I do do that.

You write who you are. But you also cheat, and youwrite what you want to be. It's embarrasing to be the guy who madethe movie, knowing you're not exactly who you want to be.

Kill your television!