Paul Thomas Anderson Quotes

Brian Eno developed systems to keep himself on edge and to keep himself in a position where he's generating ideas.

I really subscribe to that old adage that you should never let the audience get ahead of you for a second. So if the film's abrasive and wrongfoots people then, y'know, that's great. But I hope it involves an audience.

I think people who make movies and have invested a lot of money in them get frightened that if they challenge an audience they are going to repel them. And I think the opposite; it's really true.

I feel so much more comfortable when I'm working on material which makes other people scratch their heads and ask, 'You're going to make a musical out of that?'

Short stories are wonderful and extremely challenging, and the joy of them, because it only takes me three or four months to write, I can take more risks with them. It's just less of your life invested.

It's really fun to go back and forth from acting projects to directing projects. You don't have as much responsibility when you're acting, but you have more fun. But then you miss having that responsibility, and so you go back and torture yourself and make a movie.

The one thing I'm proud of as a filmmaker is that people are entitled not to like my films - that's the privilege of the public - but I think I have my own imprint.

I love playing instruments that I don't know how to play or am not familiar with. I like the idea of danger and innocence that comes from it. As an artist, I feel I should be able to do something with anything I get my hands on. The music becomes minimalist because of my limited knowledge.

Once you become a producer, you're really selling something. It is a control issue, because you don't really know how it's going to pan out, but the creative control makes it work it.

Movies are not an art form where you get to kind of sit in your art gallery and paint, you know? You don't do that. You're spending a lot of somebody else's money.

I'm a pragmatic man. I'll veer on the dangerous side, because I love dangerous subjects, but I won't shoot a show in the foot.

There's a tacit agreement between myself and the audience that I will entertain them when they buy their ticket, and I've been the one that has screwed that up. Once in while I indulge myself and try something else, and I keep my fingers crossed that it will come out good and there'll be enough people who will enjoy it, but that doesn't often happen.

You know, an hour and fifty-four minutes is too much for audiences. They get nervous.

Not taking a risk is a risk. That's how I see it.

One doesn't accept bad challenges. Part of it is always the risk-taking without seeing that the risks are rational and the rewards are commensurate.. are more than commensurate.. with the risks.

There's a point where you find yourself tiptoeing as an artist, and then you know that you're in the wrong place.

I feel like Hollywood would rather end the emerging, bottom-up creative culture than let it happen.

If movies have to satisfy every possible quadrant before they're even made, they're dull. You only get great things when people overreach themselves.

If you risk nothing you gain nothing

The key to attempting to create art in some aspect is also knowing that it will turn some people off.

The thing is to be brave and move the audience with you, instead of cater to the lowest common denominator, you know, slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass. You got to move the audience a little further ahead in terms of their appreciation of what is comedy. It's complicated.

Conventional wisdom can get us into so much trouble, especially as artists.

In not-for-profit theater, you don't worry so much about how the audience is going to react. You want to make them absorb the piece.

Be non-trend-driven, and explore, be creative and take risks as an artist and as a cultural communicator.

It's important to take risks.