55 Quotes by Paul Schrader

I was raised as a Calvinist, which is doctrine-driven. And though there are many things wrong with Calvinism, you are at least encouraged to argue about things.

I still think like a critic, and I still analyze films like a critic. However, it's not possible to write criticism if you're making films.

'Taxi Driver' wasn't autobiographical in terms of the actual events, but I did draw on my own mental state.

The problem with The Exorcist was that I wasn't holding any cards. They paid me for the movie, so they own the movie. It's like if you made this chair and I buy it from you. You want me to sit on the chair, and I want to put it in my fireplace. What are you gonna do? Time to go off and make another chair.

I don't believe that anymore but you certainly know that world. But I wasn't Catholic. It was slightly different. The metaphorical strength of that stuff, of those stories, whether it's stories from the Bible or stories from contemporary mythology like The Exorcist have enormous metaphorical weight.

It's an old-fashioned romance of the highest order, a real melodrama, which I wrote and directed and financed. Nobody paid me to do this film. If a studio had made it, everyone would be saying that I had whored out, but in fact I had to fight to raise the financing, so if I did whore out, I whored out to my own melodramatic side.

It's great when somebody comes at you and says, 'We have a big serious movie and we want to hire you because you're a serious person'. Particularly in today's world, when you spend so much of your time pretending that you're not.

In the end it's a revenue stream. And all revenue streams eventually reach the sea.

His gifts are now more social than sexual. He's this society walker who has his lady friends, and a boyfriend on the side.