Aaron McGruder Quotes

At network television you could make a show like Freaks and Geeks, and even though 7 million people watch is every week, you were considered a terrible failure, and they got rid of you and staff. Now ... It's like a world where the replacements are the biggest fans in the world. It's, the Elvis Costellos of television are the winners. Creativity is king and it's very very exciting.

All artists are anarchists in some way - some more extreme than others, but it's something that I think artists are supposed to do. We're supposed to present a different angle on everything, and I certainly think it is [art] as much as poetry, in my opinion.

I don't really enjoy working in TV, to be completely honest, even though it's incredibly lucrative, I'm just terrified of not being satiated in a myriad of different ways. It's amazing that I get to create every day, as an actor, or a director, or a writer, and I get to do it in a variety of different genres and worlds and characterizations. I think that's the great privilege of what we do, we get to make believe. I get to go to so many different places, try on different occupations, take on different points of view. That's what's always been sort of alluring.

I know a famous violinist who told me he can't compose because he knows too many pieces. So, when he starts thinking of a note, an existing piece immediately comes to mind. Just starting out, one of your biggest strengths is not knowing how things are supposed to be.

I don't have to worry about what people are thinking and what's going on in the industry. I don't want that stuff to influence what I'm doing. Because I think it stifles you creatively. I don't want to have to care too much about that. All I care about is what the fans think. It's really all I care about, honestly.

I don't like to hear anybody in show business complain, because I just find it to be such a grateful business. Because there are so many wonderful, creative souls out there and there are so few jobs. And, so, I just find myself thinking to myself "wow, if I could get into a show of any kind and have it last for a while" - that's when I find myself really happy.

Sometime, when you start thinking too much what an audience is going to think, when you're too self-conscious about it, you make mistakes.

I feel like I'm still learning the ropes of how television works. Obviously I have good folks surrounding me on different shows. It's funny because sometimes in film I'm sort of the third guy to the left, you can be as insane as you want to be as that guy.

I haven't been alone in years. It's that alone time when you really look yourself in the mirror and you see what you really want. It just gets a little convoluted in this industry. That said, I really want to act. But, now I think it's time for me to do something else for a while, so that I can feel that passion again.

My husband says I have too much imagination, but I don't think a writer can have too much imagination!

My family was fine, it's just a different way of going about life. Creativity was not something that was isolated and identified and valued.

I think it's more interesting if you go all the way with the world you have, and really look at it, and push it to an even more extreme extreme.

I think the reason I was able to get the jobs I did is because I worked for some very strong, self-possessed filmmakers who wouldn't listen to the executive-suited wisdom, and they believed in me from director to actor. Not from salesman to commodity.

It's impossible for me to feel like there's only one way to do a thing. There's nothing wrong with having one way of doing it, but I think it's a bad habit. I believe in range. Like, there's a lot of tunes that I play all the time-sometimes I hear 'em in a different register. And if you don't have complete freedom, or you won't let yourself get away from that one straight line, oh, my goodness, that's too horrible to even think about.

I have two wonderful, supportive and very practical parents who were like, you're really talented and really creative. You should be a lawyer because there's a safe path there. And I knew that I was never going to be a lawyer. And I knew that I wanted to make movies, and I wanted to write shows.

One of the reasons I love making movies is because it's an opportunity to share with the world a different way of being or a different way of living or seeing the world. If it's something you've already seen before, if I have too many reference points for it, then it's not exciting for me to make.

A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it. It is different than patience. It is not thinking. It is working with the rhythm.

There used to be a huge snobbism between the film industry and the television industry. I produced and acted in my first - well way back - but the first thing that I produced and acted in was Sarah, Plan and Tall. And the only place to go at the time for really quality television was Hallmark Hall of Fame. And think how much television has changed since then.

I think reality television, unless it's inspirational, which it very rarely is, I think it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing state of affairs that we're in.

Sometimes I get it right and I sometimes I get it wrong. But fashion is all about having fun. I think fashion has been hijacked by the fashion industry creating rules on what one should wear and I feel like breaking the mold and seeing that the world won’t crumble.

I've had it-the agencies, the winking, the networks, the ratings. Anyone who thinks TV is an art medium is crazy-it's an advertising medium.

I think the challenges that come with the responsibility of art directing something is something that appeals to me.

I was part of the sort of avant guard tradition of John Cage and music concrete and pushing back the boundaries of avant garde classic pop rhythms. I think everyone brings something completely different to it.

I'm not a soldier for anything, either. I'm only a singer and I don't think it makes a difference what we sing.

Let's use that to make as interesting and different and unique a story as possible and not just stay with the same thing.' And this movie is certainly the embodiment of that.