Randy Newman Quotes

I prefer writing originals.

I already have legitimacy as a filmmaker and now I'm trying to do stuff that's just fun. Until I find a cool tangible subject again that I want to tackle.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

I have so many themes I want to explore, so many questions I'd like to raise and develop, and hopefully, I'll get to do just that.

I like to have a thing suggested rather than told in full. When every detail is given, the mind rests satisfied, and the imagination loses the desire to use its own wings.

For years, I was watching other people have so much fun playing out their version of authorship, like Louis C.K. and Larry David. As I watched them do their thing, I began to pine for the days when I had a lot less expected of me and, often, a lot more creative freedom. The courage that those guys have is always captivating to me.

I don't want to steal anybody's story. I very much want to use the stories that I hear to get lost in my mind, to tell a larger story.

The possibilities are infinite with new writing; every time you open a new script, there's no limit to what it might contain.

Mostly I sat down and said, 'I'm not going to write a boring story.' And that actually, surprisingly, solves most of your problems.

Good fiction is about asserting the beauties of the world, inventing a new, positive thing. Where am I going to get that? And it should be original; it should not be cliched. So the way I looked at history was not to accuse it of failure.

It's what still excites me most about acting: letting your imagination go places it's never been before. There's nothing better than that.

If you are not breaking rules and you are not taking risks, you are not going to end up with movies where there is discovery... and, to me, that is the magic of going into the cinema.

The secret sauce of the business that I can offer is my creativity, and in order to keep my creativity alive and fresh, I have to pretend that no one is watching the show, that there are no audiences, there are no ratings; I'm just telling a story.

The part of the process that's exciting to me is feeling like I'm in a place I've never been before, in every way. Without that, I don't know if I'd be a writer.

I read, I watch a lot of movies, I'm constantly living, so I'm constantly having more to say.

I'm always excited about stories that allow me to explore a character and create interesting stories and worlds that we haven't seen before.

I've always loved massive worlds, whether in fantasy or science fiction. I like the idea of making my own rules as well as utilizing everything that I love or inspires me. It's very freeing to know you can write a story that can be as big as your own imagination.

If you know everything, it keeps you from writing. You don't want a story to burn you out instead of surprising you.

I have to challenge myself, and I have to challenge the reader. We should be weaving and working on new stories and not the same story over and over.

For me, the source material can come from anywhere. It can be a poem, it can be a dream, it can be a movie, as long as the end part of it is interesting - that's what it's about for me.

I get excited to create things that don't exist in the same world as 'Hamilton' because that world is really well done and doesn't need me to inform it anymore.

My big dream has always been to write and create my own things.

The great thing about writing is, if you don't like the world, we'll create a different one.

My imagination doesn't require anything more of the book than to provide a framework within which it can wander.

The purpose of fiction is not to nail you to the ground as facts do, but to take you to the edge of the cliff and kick you off so you build your wings on the way down.