One of the reasons I did ‘Louie Bluie’ and ‘Crumb’ with Criterion was because I like a lot of their older French films. That’s the only reason. I watch these films by Jacques Becker and...

A lot of things I have turned down ended up being a big embarrassment. Like that script, ‘The Beaver.’ I thought that was one of the worst scripts I had ever read. But everyone said,...

I did turn down ‘The Virgin Suicides.’ I talked to the producers about it, and I just honestly told them that I didn’t get it. Is it supposed to be funny, is it a thriller,...

Certain types of films will never test well. My films never seem to test well.

So I told Robert from the start that if we couldn’t get Charles and Max to take part, but especially Charles, that I didn’t want to make the film. So would he call his mother...

For a long time, there was this rumor that I turned down doing ‘Austin Powers,’ which is not true. While they did send me the script, I don’t think I was ever a serious consideration...

I don’t like most Christmas movies. They’re pretty bad, though they seem to make tons of money anyway. Like this movie ‘Elf,’ I got the script for that, and I turned it down right away....

I never saw a department store Santa as a kid. My mother was afraid to take me.

The first scene I ever shot for ‘Louie Bluie,’ on that first day, I had never seen the camera before. I didn’t know where to put it. I just knew what was strong about these...

I hope they get something of interest out of it, but I’d rather they all hate it and I like it, instead of vice versa… I make films to please myself first, and if the...

I think my father kept struggling to get us into better neighborhoods, better schools. One of the worst jobs he had was folding shirts under these fluorescent lights all day at the equivalent of a...

If I start paying attention to the mechanics of a film while watching it, then it’s generally a bad film.

Well, that was certainly – to me, until we could film in Charles’ room, I didn’t even want to bother filming anything else. And in fact, I did hold off and that was the first...

Luckily, he was in the process of moving to France at the time, anyway. But if he had stayed in the States, I don’t know how he would have handled that, because it was getting...

I think the other misconceptions when the film came out, he was very upset that it was so widely released and so widely seen. And neither one of us – well, I think I had...

Oh yes, I’ve been approached to do all sorts of nonsense. How about a remake of ‘West Side Story?’

I collect old Coon Chicken Inn memorabilia. I collect black memorabilia, like old minstrel posters. It was a real place. There was one in Seattle, one in Portland, and one in Salt Lake City. They...

People like light and silly, and they like stuff that’s really energetic, and you get a character in a film bouncing around and screaming, people laugh. That’s all it takes. I don’t find that funny....

I try to make a film that’s very entertaining, very funny, but also gives you something to think about. And the strongest thing I have to offer is my point of view, to get across...

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

Maybe if I found something I was really passionate about, which is entirely possible, I would make another documentary, but it’s not a good career choice for anybody. I don’t recommend it.

The last Christmas movie I really liked was ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ probably. It’s sort of a schmaltzy movie, but it’s not without its dark moments. It still gets to me every year.

I’m not trying to be self-serving, but you know, you get to Hollywood, and if you want to make something big and loud and dumb, it’s pretty easy. It’s very hard to go down there...

The films I want to make, I really want to be passionate about.

I was inspired to do anything I could to get out of what I was doing… today, I’m motivated to pay the bills.

The things I want to make into a film, they’re personal, esoteric things, and I don’t expect anyone else to like them as much as I do. I generally like my films more than anybody...

I’ve stopped going to see art films because every critic gives them four stars and say things like ‘masterpiece,’ ‘spellbinding’ and ‘mesmerizing.’ I mean, they’re doing that with my film, but I don’t want to...

The main trouble with Hollywood is that the guys you have to pitch to, the guys who run the studios, are all business school grads.

That would be getting up at 5 am… I don’t understand why film’s shoot such brutal hours. I think it’d be worth it to not be so strictly cost-effective and have an 8 hour day....

The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don’t. I don’t think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I’d like to think you need a singular vision to make good art.

If I see my films described as ‘quirky’ or, even worse, ‘snarky’ one more time, I’m going to probably seriously consider an early retirement. All these years, I’ve labored under the conceit that they were...

You have to go back to the ’30s and ’40s to see a film that’s any good.

I gotta tell you, I don’t have many close friends, and if I do wind up making friends with somebody, it takes me a long time, usually.

When I went around promoting ‘Crumb,’ there would be days I’d wake up in, like, Houston or Cleveland, and I’d step outside the hotel and get no idea where I was. It all looks the...

Just to get the actors to relax, listen to each other, and actually affect each other, there are a number of techniques you have to learn, and they don’t all work on every actor.

And I sense it was a rather constructed, almost half narrative fiction film in some ways. A lot of it was staged and manipulated to get those things in there that I knew to be...

People think I have an interest in comics, but I’m only interested in comics from the ’40s, like ‘Donald Duck’ comics.

Chicago always hit me as such a gloomy place – I just remember all the snow getting dirty as soon as it would fall, all the decaying brown brick buildings around where we lived, all...

Whereas my producer literally worked on this thing for 10 years and because I gave that presenter credit to David Lynch, she to this day never gets credit. It really kills me.

My hat’s off to documentary filmmakers. I don’t know if I’m ever going back to it. You’re treated like a second-class citizen at most film festivals. You take the bus while everybody else is flown...

Because I found myself telling the story of his family to people without the visual aids that I was able to employ by filming them eventually. But I very much knew exactly what I was...

It makes it difficult to decide which to go see, since no film about say, some tragic genocide in Africa is going to get a bad review even if it’s poorly made.

Crumb was such an influence on me. He’s such a visionary, such a great artist, that he so shaped my artistic sensibilities on a certain level that I do owe everything to him. The way...

A good script and perfect casting, that’s 90 percent of the work.