Quotes

When I was a kid, I used to do my homework in the living room, where there was a picture window. I was hoping that someone would walk by and see me looking very studious in my living room.

Some of the independent movies that make money have a very specific thing that you can tell audiences they'll feel about it. 'This will make you feel so happy'. 'This will make you feel something about your family'. And anything that's not that, if it's 'This will make you feel perhaps uncomfortable about choices you've made in your life. [Frances Ha (2012)] will touch your deep feelings of failure and unworthiness. [My father said about it:] 'You know they play that Steve Miller song in the beginning? You think, This is really gonna make you feel great'. He was 'Yes!' and then 'What?'

[on her screenplay for Frances Ha (2012)] So much of writing is like baking a cake. I can't tell you where the sugar is.

Sitting and waiting is such an awful way to live, but it's a big part of being an actor. Creating projects is really what's happening these days. The chance to participate in your own career is a lot more exciting than just hoping that it all works out.

[on her meticulous preparation] If I fall on my face and it's dreadful and everybody says it's dreadful, I'd rather have tried than not.

It's a real privilege to make films and I hope to make films that touch people or connect with people in some way.

In film, you can establish rhythm from editing, but in theater, you can only establish rhythm through language, so I think I still have that sense of wanting it to sound correct. I know it when I hear it, and when it's wrong, it's like someone I don't know is touching my belly button.

I'm very interested in desires that don't have categories.