Paul Mazursky Quotations

Even when I begin with a situation that's basically funny or sad, I like to keep poking around in it. I like to get into the middle of a relationship, to explore the subtle places.

The one thing that's closest to my story is the thing about trying out for the juvenile delinquent role and getting it. That was the start of my acting career... which I've resumed, by the way.

One thing I know is that I don't want to be a director for hire, making genre films.

I wonder if that's hurt me at the box office. Maybe audiences these days want to know exactly what to expect when they go into a movie, and my movies are hard to explain in just one way.

California is an island, and New York's an island. Maybe it's time for me to change islands.

I don't like movies that are morally simple.

I wish in my own mind I were more definite - that I was absolutely convinced I'd never direct someone else's script, but I keep reading scripts, because I might find something.

Right now, for example, I'm between pictures and I have a couple of ideas and a few scenes written down and, basically, I'm just fiddling.

I don't think I have it in me to make a movie in which all the situations and relationships are black and white. I get into the gray areas.

I've rarely met couples who - they both love to do everything together.

Almost every actor goes into almost every picture very frightened. He is positive he really can't do it. The bigger the star, the more frightened he is.

If you cast wrong, you are in a lot of trouble.

Most marriages I've known, and I've been married a long time and I've known a lot of married people - you wonder how they got together. Often they seem to be opposites.