When you have people who are embarrassing themselves for a living, who are making themselves look foolish and vulnerable and emotional for a living, your day-to-day reality is going to be a high-wire act. People are going to get in… — Paul Schrader Copy Share Image
“Twelve hours of work and I still can't sleep.Days go on and on... They don't end.” — Paul Schrader Copy Share
The secret of the creative life is to feel at ease with your own embarrassment. — Paul Schrader Copy Share
People who act against their own best interests are interesting characters. — Paul Schrader Copy Share
All these teachers and [screenwriting] books mean you see movies that have been worked over by more committees wielding more rules, that all originality… — Paul Schrader Copy Share
Because many of the films I've made have had an intellectualedge, it's harder for me to lie. It's harder for me to go to… — Paul Schrader Copy Share
Those artists who say that somehow therapy or analysis will thwart their creativity are completely misinformed. It's absolutely the opposite: it opens closed doors. — Paul Schrader Copy Share
Contradiction is the heart and soul of character and drama. You're always looking for it. I loved her so much I hit her; that's… — Paul Schrader Copy Share
You can't take contradiction away. Part of the fun of it is that the contradiction never really quite goes away. — Paul Schrader Copy Share
I still think like a critic, and I still analyze films like a critic. However, it's not possible to write criticism if you're making… — Paul Schrader Copy Share
There's something wrong - the performance, the weather, the set design, the lighting. Something is not working. And so you say, "Give me 10… — Paul Schrader Copy Share
I had this whole issue of doing a crime film in the 2010s. The genre's been mined very, very heavily. Post-Scorsese, post-Tarantino, post-Guy Ritchie,… — Paul Schrader Copy Share
One of the things that I do like about filmmaking is that you find out how to solve new problems. — Paul Schrader Copy Share
I could be just a writer very easily. I am not a writer. I am a screenwriter, which is half a filmmaker... But it… — Paul Schrader Copy Share
