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

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.

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.

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

'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.

Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.

Wanting to win is what keeps the trade on, If you win, you lose the trade.

Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.

[Commercial] radio is absolutely the enemy of music. They are my sworn and mortal enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them.

The idea of Twitter started with me working in dispatch since I was 15 years old, where taxi cabs or firetrucks would broadcast where they were and what they were doing.

The difference between a movie star and a movie actor is this - a movie star will say, 'How can I change the script to suit me?' and a movie actor will say. 'How can I change me to suit the script?'

I grew up in a Jewish family, and we have raised our children in a Jewish tradition. Religion gives a framework for moral enquiry in young minds and points us to questions beyond the material.

The Regulars are coming out!

Right after 'Raymond' I had a world-is-my-oyster attitude, but I found out I don't like oysters. I had this existential emptiness.'What is my purpose? Who am I?' I had a big identity crisis.

I'd rather attempt something I'm not sure I can do