Best 78 quotes of Noah Baumbach on MyQuotes

Adaptations are fun for me because they connect to the idea of filmmaking I had when I was a kid. I would see a movie and think: 'I'm gonna make that movie.'

A film set becomes its own family anyway, and all family dynamics come out during a shoot. The trick is hiring people who know how to handle that.

A lot of black-and-white films generally have a color version that will be used for TV.

Anyone who's putting money into your movie would always rather you cast well-known people.

As a kid, I thought of myself as a funny person who secretly wanted to be serious, but now I think maybe I'm a serious person who secretly wants to be funny.

Being articulate, my parents could make anything sound reasonable.

Being funny, in some ways, is about being connected to psychology.

Dance is a profession with an expiration date for many people.

Defining yourself by your taste is easier than defining yourself by any genuine stance on something.

Friends of friends had bands in college or in their early 20s and had a moment where they had some kind of interest from a record label or manager. It's always interesting how people handle those decisions and those moments.

How you start the movie is critical. And how often you feel that there's no reason for how it's starting.

I always wanted to write movies that I'd direct. I didn't come at it from a writing standpoint more than a directing standpoint, except that growing up, I didn't have the opportunity to shoot as much as I did to write.

I didn't train in directing; I talk to actors the way I talk to anybody.

I do like having books on my shelves. I do value that life.

I don't like when you necessarily know that this is the end of the movie. I like when a movie ends abruptly. You go through this, and some of the scenes are uncomfortable, and some are funny - and then suddenly it's over.

I do think it's a very good way to describe what a great actor does. You're both acknowledging the authority of the director and the necessity of the actor to push back and find their own voice.

I feel a real connection to Brooklyn, certainly, because I spent 20 years of my life there, but I don't think of myself as a Brooklyn artist any more than I think of myself as a male artist.

I find a lot of writing happens when you're not actually at the computer. So I carry a notebook.

If you don't feel good about something, you don't shake it off easily.

I grew up in the heat of '70s postmodern fiction and post-Godard films, and there was this idea that what mattered was the theory or meta in art.

I guess I'm interested in people who are very sophisticated in intellectual ways, while being completely off the mark in emotional ones, with huge blind spots in terms of their own behavior.

I guess I probably took New York for granted. Growing up, playing in the street, going down to the Avenue to the record store and to the grocery store and stuff like that.

I like having associations with locations beyond their meaning for the specific movie.

I like shooting in New York because I have such a connection to the city. I have so many memories there.

I like the way corduroys feel. I like the sort of jean aspect of corduroys, but also the texture of them. They probably remind me of my childhood, too, I think. I wore cords, and my dad had a corduroy jacket.

I like to have memories of a place. It brings something extra. I'm not even sure what it is. I mean, it's the same part of it as I like using friends in small parts or people I know or my doorman.

I like to try to keep things as relaxed and easy as possible. I mean, movies generally attract a lot of people who like to cause fires, so they can later try to put them out. But I don't like that kind of thing.

I like to try to shoot in the city in a way that allows the city to go about its business while we're shooting, and that's always a challenge because unfortunately people on the street don't know not to look in the camera or interact with the actors.

I live in Manhattan now, because, in a way, it was my fantasy.

I love black-and-white movies that are about contemporary subjects.

I made two movies very young, and then I had trouble getting a movie made, and so - which was both, I think, a plus and a minus. It was a minus because it made me unhappy.

I'm a huge proponent of therapy and analysis, but it's something that, in a nonprofessional way, can be abused.

I'm always looking for overlooked post-Dylan singer-songwriter records from the '70s.

I'm curious how people build up the codes that they live their life by, and how they come to think that that's the best way for them to function.

I'm interested in music as an extension of character.

I'm interested in the way major events don't necessarily announce themselves as major events. They're often little things - the drip, drip of life that changes people or affects people.

I'm sure I've said some pretty bad pick-up lines.

I read all the time. Sometimes I get asked if I've thought about writing a novel.

I really like my first movie a lot, "Kicking and Screaming." I think it's a - I'm very pleased and proud of that movie, but it wasn't the - it wasn't "Citizen Kane" right out of the box, you know? It wasn't "Sex, Lies and Videotape.

I suppose some studio executive would say it's death for a comedy if people aren't all laughing in the same places, but I find with my movies that people laugh in very different places. I can't control it.

I think all my movies are about transitions to some degree.

I think anxiety is dangerous, but it makes you think it's your friend.

I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it.

I think I've always been drawn to the notion of talk as cinematic.

I think sometimes bad behaviour can be liberating for certain people. They need to behave badly to find themselves - to go off path to find their path. You see it with kids all the time: They're testing boundaries, and I think that's healthy.

I thought at the time of my parents' divorce that I was upset by deeper, more profound things and I was just taking it out on the joint custody agreement. But that disruption was bad enough. That was a huge deal for a teenager.

I try to procrastinate, if I can, productively, like I'll work on something else as procrastination. Or I take a walk. Because often I find, if you get out, more things come to you.

I try to write 'and it's all very funny' after each scene description so that the reader can imagine the movie in their head.

It's always really special to be at the New York Film Festival, and always a real privilege.

It's near impossible to make a movie in black and white in the system.