Controversial' as we all know, is often a euphemism for 'interesting and intelligent.
There's something to be said for failing. It's not the failure you feel, it's the failure that people project when something disappoints. You're back to ground zero, where there's no expectations, and that's where I like to be.
Storytelling is my currency. It's my only worth. The only thing of value I have in this life is my ability to tell a story, whether in print, orating, writing it down or having people acting it out.
Don't let anybody tell you different, man: The main goal in life careerwise should always be to try to get paid to simply be yourself.
If there was no Internet, my career would have ended in 1995.
I know what it feels like to carry a lot of weight in a society that's very image-conscious. It's a thin person's world, and we try to navigate within it without being made fun of.
BRODIE: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA.
Everybody's got one killer story. It doesn't take talent to tell that story, it just takes experience.
Any book is a self-help guide if you can take something from it.
Long time no see. I only pray the caliber of your questions has improved.
The writer crafts their ideal world. In my world, everyone has really long conversations or just picks apart pop culture to death and everyone talks in monologue.
People like to set the bar high. I like to put the bar on the ground and barely step over it. I like to keep the expectations really low.
You can have 10 bucks to 10 million bucks and if you got a crew, imagination and a lot of people willing to turn in some work next to nothing, you going to have a feature. But you can't get beyond how expensive marketing the movie is, it's so crushing.
All these people who say success changes people; well, no, it just magnifies what's there.
If you're lucky, you go from being a movie fan to a movie maker.
From now on, any flick I'm ever involved with, I conduct critics screenings thusly: 'You wanna see it early to review it? Fine: pay like you would if you saw it next week.'
It's taken me 15 years to step behind a camera and make something everyone agrees looks like a movie.
AZRAEL: No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater... than central air.
When you're a filmmaker you're part of a very expensive art form.
It's kind of debatable whether or not the advertisement model is effective. Like whether Nielsen works. For years, Nielsen has been based on sampling. It's not like an electronic bullet that hits your house that tells the people at networks at all times what you're watching.
Dudes know I'm not a threat. Chicks know I'm not a threat.
The older you get, the more you realize you cannot win on the Internet.
I think the advent of the Internet gave us all a big boost, because by the time the Internet became mainstream and you could get it in your home, a lot of us were used to dealing in fan culture, writing to magazines or anything at the back of comic books.
The first few films I made didn't look good at all, and I wasn't trying to make them look good. People dig 'em because they like the content.
I feel like if you're in Jersey, you have to be a Jersey Devils fan. Anybody born within the confines of the border of the state of New Jersey, I feel, should be a Jersey Devils fan.
The only thing of value I have in this life is my ability to tell a story, whether in print, orating, writing it down or having people acting it out. That's why I'm always hoping society never collapses because the first ones to go will be entertainers.
I'm not even supposed to be here today.
It's like a dream come true. When somebody is paying you to talk about yourself, you've won.
I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment. In fact, maybe that's really it. In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing.
So I know how I watch movies which is on my laptop, man. And that's how I suspect a lot of people do it.
