Noah Baumbach People Quotations

I'm always interested in how people, myself included, have ideas of themselves, of how they thought they would be, or of how they want to be seen. And the older you get, the world keeps telling you different things about yourself. And how people either adjust to those things and let go of adolescent notions. Or they dig in deeper.

It's funny, I'm very analytical in my real life, but in terms of my films, I try to not analyze them at all and let things just go into them and let them be what they are. I mean, people ask me to this day what 'The Squid and the Whale' stood for, and I have no idea except that it's an exhibit in the Natural History Museum.

I'm curious how people build up the codes that they live their life by, and how they come to think that that's the best way for them to function.

It's nice being friends over a period of time with people whose music you like so much, or other filmmakers, seeing people change, go through trials

Friends of friends had bands in college or in their early 20s and had a moment where they had some kind of interest from a record label or manager. It's always interesting how people handle those decisions and those moments.

Many of the crew members I work with and continue to work with were friends or have become close friends, and so we keep working together. And I like casting friends of mine or people I know in parts I know would be perfect for them. I like to bring things and people that mean something to me in to my work.

I've always felt some kind of connection to people who are kind of over-smart. People who over-think things to the point of some sort of paralysis, and I think that certainly can be me on any given day.

I can feel pretty critical of people, and I understand that sort of feeling of when you're going through something that's painful, taking it out on the world and projecting onto other people, finding faults with other people because it's harder to find faults in yourself.

I've had great experiences or joyful experiences making a movie that people found very disturbing.

I think sometimes bad behaviour can be liberating for certain people. They need to behave badly to find themselves - to go off path to find their path. You see it with kids all the time: They're testing boundaries, and I think that's healthy.

A film set becomes its own family anyway, and all family dynamics come out during a shoot. The trick is hiring people who know how to handle that.

I get a lot of responses to my movies. Some people say, 'Oh, I thought it was really funny - I hope that's okay!' And my answer always is 'Yes. It's totally okay.'

I'm interested in the way major events don't necessarily announce themselves as major events. They're often little things - the drip, drip of life that changes people or affects people.

The real achievement of Woody Allen was that he was making movies that felt very personal, and for a whole group of people, it spoke to them. Then he became an archetype, like Groucho Marx or Chaplin.

We all have these notions of cool that come about at different points in our lives, and it's interesting in how it evolves or doesn't evolve in different people.

Anyone who's putting money into your movie would always rather you cast well-known people.

Dance is a profession with an expiration date for many people.

I've always liked working with friends or, you know, people I have outside relationships with.

Other people have worked with big studios and maintained control over their movies. I see no reason why it wouldn't work for me.

There are the people who overthink making mix CDs and playlists, and how that works generationally is all really interesting to me.

I guess I'm interested in people who are very sophisticated in intellectual ways, while being completely off the mark in emotional ones, with huge blind spots in terms of their own behavior.

I know people who are incredibly successful who still dress the way they did when they were 18, just because they still think that's how they look good.

I like to try to shoot in the city in a way that allows the city to go about its business while we're shooting, and that's always a challenge because unfortunately people on the street don't know not to look in the camera or interact with the actors.

I suppose some studio executive would say it's death for a comedy if people aren't all laughing in the same places, but I find with my movies that people laugh in very different places. I can't control it.

To this day, I have people I might meet who will make assumptions about my life based on fictional elements of 'The Squid And The Whale.' But I think that's par for the course if you make something that feels kind of real.

I've run into more people walking in L.A. than if I drove. Because you stand out so much if you walk. People from my past have stopped their cars and said, 'Hey!' But if I was in a car, they never would've seen me.

I like to have memories of a place. It brings something extra. I'm not even sure what it is. I mean, it's the same part of it as I like using friends in small parts or people I know or my doorman.