Josh Radnor Quotes

I like movies that are about real people in real time with real problems.

It really shocks me when I encounter people who think kindness doesn't matter. Because I think it's pretty much the only thing that matters.

In college, you're kind of designing who you want to be. And I wanted to be a big reader.

I kicked college nostalgia in my late 20s. As much as I loved college and treasure the memories, I no longer want to go back.

I care about reading, a lot. It's a big part of my life.

Even though I occasionally appear on it, I don't watch television.

Kindness is not about instant gratification. More often, it's akin to a low-risk investment that appreciates steadily over time.

Film allows me to ask some really big questions with the time to explore them deeply. I love the form.

I went through this very serious Woody Allen phase in college and a little bit after college. I still see his movies.

All of the things I used to obsess over, I'm no longer as obsessed with. I have new concerns but they're a little more existential or cosmic.

I actually have a thing about proper nouns. They clang on my ear in a weird way when I hear them dropped into movies.

The purpose of fiction is to combat loneliness.

One of the secrets to life is saying yes to change and allowing things to transition, but I also think you have to mark the time and give thanks for all that it gave you.

Talk about what you love and keep quiet about what you don't.

I learned a lesson which I didn't heed: Don't put yourself in your movies. It's too much.

My whole thing is that I want to explore why you read books, what's the purpose of reading, and maybe that it's not that cool to hate something just because it's popular.

Knowing when to say something and when not to say something is important.

We're like a gardener with a hose and our attention is water - we can water flowers or we can water weeds.

Everyone has expectations. You just don't want to have them dashed, so you're quiet about them.

We don't have a lot of space in our imaginations to allow people to expand what they do.

As a person, I'm anti-violence.

It never made sense to me that someone would achieve any kind of success in show business, only to become a jerk.

To write a story about New York that only deals with people in your age and socioeconomic bracket, that feels dishonest to me. So much of New York comes from everyone bumping into each other.

No matter how dark things may get in a story, I feel it's the responsibility of the storyteller to leave the audience with at least a shred of hope.

I've always been attracted to ensembles. When I started doing plays in high school and in college, I always loved the community aspect of it. I loved these little families that would develop.

In writing scripts now, having made a film, I'm much more conscious of what it means to shoot and edit a movie, and that affects the writing.

I feel comfortable with women. I have two sisters, so I grew up in a female-dominated environment.

I really like to travel when I write. Something about seeing new things and being in new cultures and environments provokes new thoughts in your head.

When I'm working, it's great. When I'm not working, it's great.

One thing I'm most proud of, in my movies, is that I think the performances are super-strong, but that's not all me. I think part of it is casting appropriately.

There's something touching about a kid who's reading a book that's printed on actual paper. I think that anything that kids start reading, within reason, can lead to other discoveries.

The attitude of the director is really important, in terms of setting tone.

I have great people surrounding me and helping me out. I'm totally in love with directing movies and I hope to do more of it.

I learned to choose my battles. Sometimes I let my producer deal with something that I didn't want to deal with.

Time off from the news is always something I welcome.

We are so vocal about what we hate.

And as a filmmaker, I'm trying to unhook myself from this idea that unless you have a brilliant, long, enormously lucrative theatrical run, that your movie somehow failed. And I don't believe that.

One man's uplift is another man's sentimental hooey.

There are just things you can explore in a movie that you can't in 22 minutes with a laugh track.

My trick is the trick that everyone knows: Work really hard and prepare.

It's really hard to be poor in New York - I was really poor when I lived in New York.

I sometimes don't know what I'm writing when I start writing it, on some level.

A lot of times, we're just sold these movies that are really cynically conceived and marketed, and they just want you there opening weekend, before everybody finds out it's not so good.

Acting on stage is still my favorite thing to do. And everyone who's been in musicals knows that there is nothing more fun.

I distinguish sentiment from sentimentality. Sentimentality makes your skin crawl. It's like too much sugar. But, sentiment is a great feeling.

I have really good female friends. I've never bought the whole men-and-women-can't-be-friends thing. I think that's sort of nonsense.

I think that the mark of a great book is that it will meet you wherever you're at and you'll feel and experience something new and different each time you read it.

I'll say this, and this has nothing to do with gender or sexuality: You do not want to get licked in the face repeatedly by another human being. You just don't. It's not pleasant.

What I write is very personal, but not autobiographical. It's more 'thematically personal' - what's up in my life in terms of themes at the moment.

The reflexive allergy to L.A. that a lot of New Yorkers have, I feel like it's kind of nonsense.