Noah Baumbach Quotes

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

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.

When you find yourself on the Internet when you're supposed to be writing, you've already lost. It's even beyond procrastination when you end up on the Internet.

We expect forty-year-olds to have grown up at some point, and to be engaged and adult and take responsibility, and doing nothing would seem to go against that.

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.

Peter Bogdanovich is a good friend.

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.

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

It's kind of major, learning to drive. I feel like it kicked up other stuff in my life.

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

I've had great experiences or joyful experiences making a movie that people found very disturbing.

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.

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.

Being articulate, my parents could make anything sound reasonable.

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

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

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

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

I think I was going through a lot of change at 27, but I didn't know it was happening until it was over.

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

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.'

That's the nice thing about collaborating with someone: Your work becomes a conversation.

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

We all have these notions of cool that come about at different points in our lives, and it's interesting in how it evolves or doesn't evolve in different people.

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

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

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

It's kind of a crazy art form, movies, in that you have to get it right the day you do it, generally.

Will Ferrell's made a lot of brilliant movies.

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

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

Wes Anderson grew up in Houston, and he and I talk about Manhattan in similar ways, as a kind of fantasy world.

I watch movies all the time, so it's hard to pick certain specific directors that have inspired me in the aggregate.

I get a lot of responses to my movies. Some people say, 'Oh, I thought it was really funny - I hope that's okay!' And my answer always is 'Yes. It's totally okay.'

Wes Anderson's films, 6-year-olds are crazy about them.

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.

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

I wouldn't say 'Frances Ha' is autobiographical, but it's definitely very personal.

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've always liked working with friends or, you know, people I have outside relationships with.

I always viewed life as material for a movie.

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

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 think all my movies are about transitions to some degree.

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

When I start a movie, there will be certain films that I watch again just because the vibe seems right.

I used a video camera, and shot on film cameras at school and stuff, but I had a lot more training as a writer. I kind of live like a writer. I get up and I write. I've done that my whole life.