60 Quotes by Rebecca Miller

Deirdre Maddon has an extraordinary, almost celestial way of telling a story. There are so many great writers now – although I also want to go back and read all of Dickens again.

I think it’s very important to keep being frightened – if you’re not frightening yourself, you should take a break. You need to keep experimenting. You also need to take time – that’s how you do good stuff – layering and depth of knowledge.

I am half-Jewish, and yet really hadn’t been brought up within the Jewish faith. So I had felt culturally Jewish, if that’s possible, without really understanding it.

Writing is acting in the sense that you’re imagining and inhabiting another. In the book I was trying to get at the root of what true acting is.

Writing is still a bit of a miracle – the whole process: I see the world, filter the world, write down abstract squiggles on a page which somebody is then able to connect with. I’m still amazed by it and think I always will be.

I saw Dolce Vita and my mind was blown by it, by the synthesis. I realised I wanted to be a filmmaker and started making films. I was writing screenplays and couldn’t get money because my work was so uncommercial.

I was always very curious about other people. I would always stare and my mother would say – just please close your mouth!

I’m fascinated by what makes up a self, how one becomes a self, how much is it an answer to others and how much is it an essence of self.

I’ve always been fascinated by the way that children and animals suffer stoically in a way that I don’t think adults do.