Paul Schrader Quotes - Page 2

Let's just shoot in black and white. Don't explain why. Have no reason for it. Just do it because it's interesting.

Because many of the films I've made have had an intellectualedge, it's harder for me to lie. It's harder for me to go to peoplewith money and say I don't care about art, all I care about iscommerce; all I really want to do is make money.

You know, when you're in your twenties you use a great deal of symbolism. You somehow think that a character standing beneath a cross is more interesting than a character standing underneath a billboard, but when you get a little older you realize that there's not much difference.

You think it's a blessing to know what God wants? I'll tell you what he wants. He wants to push me over! Can't he see what's inside of me? All my sins.

Nobody has shot a strip club in black and white in a long time.

The best advice is essentially that thing in the back of your mind that you really aren't sure of, and when you start to hear other people bring up the same concerns, you say, "Okay, let's address that."

Words are a completely different form of expression. The word P-E-N-I-S is an entirely different form of communication than a photograph of the same thing. H

You can't take contradiction away. Part of the fun of it is that the contradiction never really quite goes away.

'Taxi Driver' wasn't autobiographical in terms of the actual events, but I did draw on my own mental state.

I had this whole issue of doing a crime film in the 2010s. The genre's been mined very, very heavily. Post-Scorsese, post-Tarantino, post-Guy Ritchie, what do you do? I wasn't attracted to pulp so much as all of a sudden I had a pulp problem. I had to find a way to make this interesting, because there's a lot of crime films that come out on VOD every week, and a number of these star Nicolas Cage.

Now I see it clearly. My whole life has pointed in one direction. I see that now. There never has been any choice for me.

I was raised as a Calvinist, which is doctrine-driven. And though there are many things wrong with Calvinism, you are at least encouraged to argue about things.

All the animals come out at night.

I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I've never taken a course and I've never read a book about it!

I was looking for people who didn't have any preconceptions about films, what I call the "post-rules" generation.

As screenwriters, we struggle with our own success. We have wallpapered our world and now we can't get anyone to notice the picture we just hung.