109 Quotes by James Gray

I had thrived in Miss Popham’s class because she was in charge of her own curriculum. She had a wonderful idea and freedom to teach as she wished. I still think hers is the best way to organize a literature class in high school if the goal is to encourage wide reading and the love of books. My own best teaching in high school reflected my attempts to replicate the spirit of that 1943 class

All I can say is sometimes home gets burned into your occipital lobe, and it can't leave you, and there's always that longing.

All I can do is point out what the facts are, ... All I want to do is prove he was bad, he's racist and did it and is going to do other things in the future.

What a director really does is set the emotional temperature and the mood and the level, amount, or lack of, distance between the action and the character, and the character and the audience.

The ending shot of 'Queen Christina' with Greta Garbo is amazing. She's at the head of the ship, and she's been through so much, and the camera gets so close to her face. That really sticks out for me.

Wait, this could really happen to me. There's no one watching out for us.

The idea that the family is this locus of support but can also hold you back and keep you down makes for good drama.

There are very few movies in English about romantic obsession told with a seriousness of purpose.

What I do have to get across is the truth of the moment within the given scene. It's my job, as a director and screenwriter, to create the environment in which all those moments will come together eventually.