I like movies that are specific. Movies that home in on a very specific subculture, a specific discipline, a specific world.

ANDREW: But do you think there’s a line? You know, where you discourage the next Charlie Parker from becoming Charlie Parker?FLETCHER: No. Because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged.

The greatest thing has been that projects that were pipe dreams before 'Whiplash' are now feeling more realistic.

It's interesting when you wind up distilling all your ambitions and your goals and dreams into one single person. It's giving that person a lot of power.

I've always wanted to make movies that are fever dreams.

I love movies where you can sense that the director risked biting off more than they can chew.

I find L.A. kind of romantic, actually. As a movie junkie, it's a city that was built by the movies. There's something really weird and surreal about it that I find energizing.

'La La Land' is about the city I live in. It's about the music that I grew up playing it's about movies that I grew up watching. Even the big spectacle of the movie feels private to me in that way.

Misery teaches you more than joy.

I know it aches, how your heart it breaks. You can only take so much. Walk on.

We need to make it easier for companies to invest in good jobs here at home.

What usually comes first is the contract.

I don't tolerate liars. When somebody lies to me, that's really, like, just unbearable.

The main measure of your devotion to God is not your devotional life. It is simply your life.

Good humor pokes fun at the powerful — not the weak.

I am an apolitical Prime Minister. Apart from elections, I don't get involved into politics ever.

Until you take charge of your own life, things don't happen.

Slaves would be tyrants were the chance theirs.