Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Julie Delpy

I went to film school to make films just because you're in control of the story.

I love the acting process. What I don't like is what's around it. The auditions and being rejected every other day. The look thing. That you have to lose weight, that you have to do Botox.

I'm an adaptable nomad. I love Paris, I've been living in Los Angeles and New York since 1990. I love London, too. My roots are inside of me.

I was six years old when I saw my first Godard movie, eight when I first experienced Bergman. I wanted to be a director when I was fourteen.

I wasn't born an artist. I was really good in science as a kid. I probably shouldn't have been an artist because I'm much more interested in science. But I was raised by artists. I can't really escape it.

If Woody Allen called me, I'd be there straight away. Who wouldn't? Truly.

I make these little films. I'm just a working person. I just study people a little bit more. It's more sociological, and it's funny anyway - not that serious. It's not like false humility. I just take it for what it is.

I don't want to go to the Bahamas on holiday. I hate islands. I want to go to Brittany, where it's cold and raining, and there's nothing fancy about it.

Too many women throw themselves into romance because they're afraid of being single, then start making compromises and losing their identity. I won't do that.

I had to trick people into giving me money for my first film. Making a romantic comedy is easier and more expected from a woman than it is to make a drama about a Japanese warrior.

When you're an actress, you become this thing in people's hands that people are trying to manipulate. I cannot stand it.

The condition of being an actress can be unbearable.

I love acting and I still want to do it, but I've such an instinct for directing, it's something that comes naturally to me. It's why I'm here on this planet.

I've proven that I'm not a complete failure. Every film has done well. It's like, "So, okay, when do I get my deal at Warner Bros?

I'm quite neurotic, usually. But when it comes to work, I become extremely focused.

I don't like to be overly directing people either. I tell them what I want and I tell them when it's wrong. I tell them no, that's not what I want. I want it more like this or more like that. I'm pretty direct with everyone, and I treat everyone the same which might be good.

I think anyone who has had a fight and who's a very good observer of the situation and people's behavior is capable of writing a fight. But you do start thinking about writing during the fights that you have with your partner.

I'm a very independent person, I love being alone, writing and doing music and stuff.

My therapist in Paris once told me that being creative is a better form of therapy for me than sitting on his couch.

A lot of new American directors have had mentors who have given them advice. And some of them have had the way paved for them by huge Hollywood directors who saw a younger version of themselves.

So often in my life I've been with people and shared beautiful moments like travelling or staying up all night and watching the sunrise, and I knew it was a special moment, but something was always wrong. I wished I'd been with someone else. I knew that what I was feeling - exactly what was so important to me - they didn't understand.

Isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?

Very quickly I realized that directing is a combination of things: It's visual, it's directing the actors, it's telling a story. And people don't always mention this part of directing, but it's also knowing how to really edit something into something that makes sense.

I'm 43, and I really don't take care of my looks. It's kind of a bad thing for an actress, but at the same time, I can't go there. I like clothes because clothes are fun. I'm still a girl, I mean, a woman, and I still love shoes. But the aging and the face...and how do you stay young and skinny and all that? I feel like if I focus on those problems too much, I'm going to lose myself in them, and it's not very interesting.

Maybe every family is dysfunctional, and that's the only thing in common throughout the world.

We didn’t want to disrupt the creative process. We have the chance to make the films we want because the films are not expensive. It’s very rare to be able to do that. It’s completely pure.

I think it's obsessions that a lot of people share, but they don't dare to talk about openly.

What's funny is that with my comedies I don't believe they're my best screenplays necessarily. They're just the ones that I wrote that I knew I could get financing, you know? I believe my other films could be better, but right now they're not being made. But they will eventually.

I think it's nice when everyone's happy. I'm that kind of person. But then sometimes you have people that are never happy, which also happened to me a little bit, people that always find ways to complain about everything. But if they're never happy, that's the way they are.

My experience is that relationships can be difficult, hard work. I love to be in a relationship.

The camera can move, you can make the shots, blah blah blah, but as long as the actors are good, you have something.

I've had this opportunity to get some of my financing out of Europe, which has helped tremendously, so I'm not completely dependent on the studio system or on U.S. financing.

I think some people, when they get a certain ego, they lose sense of whatever.

You can never replace anyone because everyone is made up of such beautiful specific details.

I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and without making it look my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone, and being loved means so much to me. We always make fun of it and stuff. But isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?

Never take no for an answer. It took me 20 years between the time I wrote my first screenplay and the time I actually got money to direct a movie.

I have a few other films in my life where I'm not attached and for a long time it was too complicated. Now it's starting to change because other actresses actually want to work with me, which is great.

You're never totally sure. I shouldn't say that because you have to pretend you're completely self-secure all the time. But, the truth is, I know what I'm doing. I think I know what I'm doing.

I did a film that I shot in 24 hours that was self-financed for $5,000. It was a feature called Looking For Jimmy that I shot with a bunch of friends. I spent eight months editing because we had 24 hours of footage that made no sense and I learned a lot about directing while editing that film.

I learned directing by editing because I saw all the mistakes I had made.

The truth is I don't see a lot of movies. I see the Oscar films. I see the films that are sent to me and a few films throughout the year.

I can't really explain the feeling of acting. It makes you the most insecure you can possibly be.

People around you that you feel you're close to, are they really wishing you good things, you know?

Our society is so much about fidelity being this thing that's sacred, and people are miserable. They're suicidal. It brings more depression than anything else on earth, probably. Sorry to say that, guys.

I've directed five films and I've proven that people have made money with my films - many people have made money with my films.

And I realized that directing actors is really important because that's what ends up on screen.

Usually I'm able to imagine something and it comes out as I imagined, more or less.

Maybe I'm a bit of a psycho-but I'd rather be psycho than boring.

People have their faults, but it doesn't prevent you from loving them.

Whether it's friendship or love. The essence of is two people trying to share something. When I think of how I met my best friends, it was always like love at first sight.

I put my films together in Europe and it kick-starts the financing when I'm attached as an actress. It makes it easier to move forward.

I'm a very direct person and, sometimes, when I want something, I will push it until I get it. But, it's OK. It's not as bad as some people. When I have an idea in my head, I'm pretty stubborn.

I'm comfortable wherever I am, and I can be anywhere and feel comfortable after three weeks. I adapt, and I'm like a chameleon. If a country doesn't have Internet, then I get used to not having the Internet. I could basically live anywhere. I'm a nomad at heart. Nothing is more boring than monotony.

I like doing sequels. Basically, I think it's a fun thing to follow characters in time. In real time.

I want to be positive and say: everything I've written will get made eventually.

In real life, when you speak with each other you overlap each other, so you can't fake that. Like especially when you have no cut. In a regular film when you want people to overlap you cut it that way. It's mixing and editing.

I think I do find humor in disorder, and reality is disorder.

I love making movies. I love writing. I love acting. I love it, and I feel really blessed to be able to actually make a living with something I love doing.

To make what you have in your head, I think that's what directing is.

It's very hard to sustain love, that's for sure. But the more you have your own life and your own self, and the less you give away who you are, the more men are attracted to you. The more desperate you are for a relationship, the worse it is to find a healthy relationship. Because the minute you become one-and-a-half people instead of two, it's a mess. Nobody's happy. Keeping your identity and having your own life and your own self, that's the only way I can make my life and sustain life.