Ice Cube Quotes

Fit the parts together, one into the other, and build your figure like a carpenter builds a house. Everything must be constructed, composed of parts that make a whole.

When I was in school, I was always writing scripts and dressing up as characters. I'd constantly be that guy who'd get up on stage. I used to write imaginary TV shows, like soap operas, for fun.

I'm a sucker for gag reels and teaser trailers for new seasons. One of the great parts of panels, especially on a show like 'Supernatural,' which can be so dark, it's fun to get up there and laugh and remember we're only telling a story. Seeing Eric Kripke and Ben Edlund up there being so funny always makes me laugh.

Composing means you have a beginning, middle and end and a fluidity to what you're doing.

I would like to see more of the making of just regular television shows. Like the casting process. I think it's so fascinating to watch the actors come in and see how they discuss everybody afterwards. It's a crazy world that has no rhyme or reason.

Sometimes it's really quick, and sometimes it's really long. There's no formula for writing songs.

Whether it's 'The West Wing' or anything else, my first thought is always, 'What's a good story?'

You might say that my work is just simply lying on the ground, and I go and I gather it, and I pick it up, and I put it together.

I do like the process of producing. Later in my career, like when I had the TV show, I was a producer and I've been on a few things.

Don't write about what you know - write about what you're interested in. Don't write about yourself - you aren't as interesting as you think.

There is no more interesting place in the world to meet characters than a movie set.

I hardly ever work from a synopsis -- I find they act like chains.

I don't know what I am on set. I can be many different things on set depending on how stressful a situation is. But at the end of the day we're making movies, we're not saving the world... we're not an army, no one's lives are at risk and we're just trying to make art, so I think as long as you keep reminding yourself that's what it's about you can have fun.

When it comes to the iconic moments, you sort of have to take all of those things and distill them the same way the costumers do and everybod Distill them and then find your own. The most iconic moment in the movie is, assuming they do, when they assemble.

I'm a character-driven director, and I tend to fall in love with the characters in my movies and TV shows.

News is almost more interesting to me than other people's fiction, if that makes sense. But other people's fiction in terms of design is still incredibly interesting to me.

Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed, an architectural one, where it is constructed, and finally a textile one, where it is woven.

Writing pilots is such a specific thing. It's not even really writing TV shows. A pilot is its own beast.

It's not enough just to be real; you have to try to make it interesting or entertaining.

Stories have tangents; they open up and become different things. You can still have a structure, but you should leave room to dream. If you stay true to your ideas, filmmaking becomes an inside-out, honest kind of process. And if it's an honest thing for you, there's a chance that people will feel that, even if it's abstract.

I'm ready for conventions. You know what's interesting, the sort of questions that Lost raises are of a different sort from this movie. In other words, Lost is about figuring out the world of the show, whereas this one seems to raise questions about the world that we know. But I'm happy to entertain both.

Whenever I'm making something, the challenge is always to create something that's interesting for me to listen to.

I just always try to find an interesting story and tell it well. That's a hard enough thing to do, whether it's a piece of fiction or it's a small piece of reality. I just look for good story.

Composition is selective improvisation.

Sometimes I say that writing a novel is the same as constructing a chair: a person must be able to sit in it, to be balanced on it. If I can produce a great chair, even better. But above all I have to make sure that it has four stable feet.