85 Quotes by Paul Thomas Anderson

It’s a gamble you take, the risk of alienating an audience. But there’s a theory – sometimes it’s better to confuse them for five minutes than let them get ahead of you for 10 seconds.

I don’t think it’s a director’s job to peek behind the curtain too much.

I don’t get a sense of American pride. I just get a sense that everyone is here, battling the same thing – that around the world everybody’s after the same thing, just some minor piece of happiness each day.

It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called ‘Rule Of The Bone.’ I didn’t do a very good job. I didn’t really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.

I really subscribe to that old adage that you should never let the audience get ahead of you for a second. So if the film’s abrasive and wrongfoots people then, y’know, that’s great. But I hope it involves an audience.

Well I’d really love to work with Robert De Niro, because he’s still the most talented actor out there.

Clinton used to like to get out of the White House a lot. He would take night trips to McDonald’s, and stuff like that. I think he wanted to get out of the house.

I’ve never been a fan of whimsical or confusing storytelling.

My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father’s first marriage who were rock ‘n’ roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture.