Film Quotes by Paul Schrader

“Twelve hours of work and I still can't sleep.Days go on and on... They don't end.”

— Paul Schrader

The secret of the creative life is to feel at ease with your own embarrassment.

— Paul Schrader

People who act against their own best interests are interesting characters.

— Paul Schrader

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

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

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

I want to be happy; why do I do things that make me unhappy?

— Paul Schrader

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

You can't take contradiction away. Part of the fun of it is that the contradiction never really quite goes away.

— Paul Schrader

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

All the animals come out at night.

— Paul Schrader

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

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

One of the things that I do like about filmmaking is that you find out how to solve new problems.

— Paul Schrader

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