Alexander Payne Good Quotations

The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. That's why so many bad novels can become good movies, like 'Jaws' or 'The Godfather.'

The most heinous shift in American films is that they reinforce good things like 'couples' and 'relationships.'

If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.

To be fair-not that I really care about being fair to anyone, ever-but to be fair, I'm sure that same ratio of bad films to good probably exists in every studio.