55 Quotes by Paul Schrader

This distinction between form and experience is not pedantic, but fundamental: a form can express the Transcendent, an experience cannot. A form can express the common ground in which all things share. An experience can only express one man's reaction to that common ground.

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.

The only economic paradigm that movies have ever known is capitalism. There were no church sponsors or state patronage. The idea was that if you'd pay to see it, we'll make it for you.

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

As screenwriters, we struggle with our own success. We have wallpapered our world and now we can't get anyone to notice the picture we just hung.

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

I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I've never taken a course and I've never read a book about it!

If you write interesting roles, you get interesting people to play them. If you write roles that are full of nuance and contradiction and have interesting dialog, actors are drawn to that.

Ultimately, it's an illusion that you can understand yourself.