Top 72 Quotes & Sayings by Nicole Holofcener

I'm not a producer and I don't even know the places my producer goes to, thankfully.

I always had good friends, but I did not feel like a cool girl, ever.

I'm sure it's more difficult for women to make movies, especially because, in general, the kind of movies women want to make aren't necessarily going to be blockbusters. But you know, there are so few women in so many positions of power.

Filming is a funny combination of having a good time and not being able to wait until it's over.

Hollywood always likes to create a star.

I would still encourage somebody, if they wanted to make a movie, to just go take a movie camera. That's clearly been shown to work.

I'm not crazy about having my picture taken. I'd rather talk my head off.

It's harder to take care of kids than it is to make a movie.

The stories that I want to tell are completely, well, somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems.

If a woman gets insomnia, you never know where you're going to find her furniture the next morning. It's primal. We have so little we can control, but we can perfect the way our room looks.

When I was going away to school, I had a friend who took a liking to my family just a little too much. We couldn't get her out of the house. It took me saying to my parents, 'I don't want her here. I'm feeling replaced.'

My movies make a profit, but obviously not a fortune.

Catherine Keener really gets me. She and I have such a shorthand together.

I'm somebody's ex-wife, and I did things that drove him nuts. And now I'm somebody's girlfriend, for many years, and I've got different things that drive him nuts.

I'm still shooting on low budgets, though none of my movies has lost money, and I rarely get sent anything that stars a guy or is a thriller or is seriously dramatic. And I would love the opportunity to do those things.

I definitely feel like a native New Yorker. My personality was formed there.

I'm willing to give up a little control but not a lot. So I say I want the money, but when push comes to shove, I'm not sure I'll be able to compromise in order to make the big studio movie. Maybe something in between would be okay, like a low-budget studio film.

I'm being photographed, worrying about my hair - and yet here I am, I've directed a feature film, why do I care about the way I look? Who cares? Does Tim Burton care? Does Joel Coen?

I went to NYU for a year and a half, and I graduated from there and then years later went to Columbia for graduate school.

I'm a director, but I gotta have the hair, the makeup and the heels. My mother would be appalled if I didn't dress up.

I don't think of myself in a political way, though I am definitely a feminist.

I'll write a character with a certain actor in mind, but then once I start casting, I have to forget about who I pictured.

I don't have a drawer full of ideas. I kind of look around and take notes and wonder what could actually be a whole movie. And each time, I think I'm going to do it more commercial this time; I'm going to get a big budget and make it. But I always come up with some small idea.

If you keep the situations real, the characters' behavior will be real and honest, too. If they're suddenly robbing a bank and exchanging snappy dialogue, well, I wouldn't even know how to write that.

If the script is right, I'm not above doing a movie with broad appeal.

I have a stack of scripts that I've read - I'm in the lucky position where I get offered things - but I haven't wanted to direct many of them.

When I'm creating characters, I just want to create characters that I can relate to, and be as honest about them as people as I can be. That's what I want to see when I go to the movies.

I rarely need career advice because I don't have a career. No, that's not true. I can't really go far away while my kids are living with me.

I think that sometimes, romantic comedies have to be really broad, and that the plot of people falling in and out of love or whatever is not enough. 'Enough Said' had that stuff, but I wanted it to be fun and funny while also grounded in reality.

The fact that I get to write and direct my own personal story is an amazing thing.

I hear people talk in my head, and I write it down. I choose where they live and how they dress to be real.

To say you want to be a director is to risk sounding obnoxious, pretentious, arrogant, and I think women are more fearful of sounding that way than men are.

I think I'm a good writer. I think I have my own voice, which is unique to everyone - everyone has their own voice; if they would just write from a vulnerable embarrassing place, it's going to be universal, and it's going to be entertaining. Because everyone is the same, and everyone is unique.

When I hear that a project takes place out of town, the material better be terrific, and it has to come at the right time. My kids are getting older, so it's getting easier, but being a mother - it's a difficult thing to juggle.

Hollywood is lacking realness in their female characters. I don't think I'm the only one who thinks that and wants to change it.

I think I'm a good writer. I think I have my own voice, which is unique to everyone, everyone has their own voice; if they would just write from a vulnerable embarrassing place, it's going to be universal and it's going to be entertaining. Because everyone is the same and everyone is unique.

The pieces of "Please Give" just did fit together. I'm very comfortable with the ensemble. I thought this was just going to be a movie about this girl who gives mammograms. She's the lead. And then before I know it, she's got a sister, neighbors, and sometimes parents and friends and then it's an ensemble. And that's what I'm comfortable with, I guess.

I do think things like old furniture and art are arbitrarily assigned. And I say that coming from an uneducated place in terms of, you know... art... curating. But who's to say what's valuable and what's not? I guess I feel like in the end it's all pretty meaningless 'cause we're all going to die.

The stories that I want to tell are completely, well somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems.

What's the trick to writing a great female character? Make her human.

It's a struggle. It's really, really hard. I'm already nervous for my next one. You have to put more and more movie stars in movies these days. And of course, I would like to have more than $3million to make it. But, again, if that's what I was offered I wouldn't turn it down. I guess studios know that. But I'm one of the lucky ones, I guess.

You can't take your stuff with you when you die. That doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it while you're alive. Why not? But it's all pretty silly. I fall victim to it. I mean, I want nice stuff too. So I guess I'm poking fun at myself as well as other materialistic people.

I think that sometimes, romantic comedies have to be really broad, and that the plot of people falling in and out of love or whatever is not enough. Enough Said had that stuff, but I wanted it to be fun and funny while also grounded in reality.

I'd rather go for Scorsese and De Niro. I just think he was so much better.

I wrote lots of scripts that never got made and they were terrible. I thought they were good at the time. You can't write two scripts and expect your career to take off. Keep writing. Be you. Be original. A lot of people go for a genre, which is fine if you can do that really well, but we all have such layered histories. We all come from a unique background. Write about your past, write about you. Or make stuff up, but make it about something that really matters.

I don't know where my next movie is going to get financed or if it will. I think every filmmaker is probably worried about that, unless their movie made a fortune. My movies make a profit, but obviously not a fortune. So yeah, it's scary.

I hear people talk in my head and I write it down. I choose where they live and how they dress to be real. That person wouldn't wear that. That person wouldn't say that. She can't afford to live like that. All that bullshit that so many movies have in them. I don't want to see that.

I would still encourage somebody, if they wanted to make a movie, to just go take a movie camera. That's clearly been shown to work. It's just how do you get it seen?

I know I repeat myself in all my movies, but I just let it go, let it happen. Clearly, I'm not finished with that issue. But they seem to me like completely different movies. They're definitely coming from me.

If anything, I learned most from being a huge fan of his and watching movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan over and over again - that influenced the kind of movies that I wanted to make more than anything else.

But then male directors also have a hard time getting their movies made... not as hard as women but it's a tough time for any movie this size. And that particular movie [The Hurt Locker] was so specific. It couldn't hurt, of course, and I'm really glad for her, but I don't know how much it will change things, if at all. The film industry is still so sexist.

My idea of no makeup on actors is really no makeup. I mean, they can be wearing makeup. I don't care what they're wearing as long as it looks like they're not wearing makeup. But an actress will suddenly appear with some lipstick on. And that's makeup. Keener's character wears makeup. Her character would wear makeup. I try to stay true to whoever that person is. I hate that kind of thing where you're waking up in the morning with makeup on in a movie. I just think it pulls you out of the movie.

Filming is a funny combination of having a good time and not being able to wait until its over.

I want the look of a movie to be secondary. I really want people to be engaged in the story and the characters and not think about a style or think about me or think about the director of photography and what a great job he's doing. I never feel like that should be there.

The movie is in my head and that's the movie. But I'd be crazy to not be flexible. I think because I have the movie in my head, I can be flexible. I know what's going to work and not work and I know, generally, what I can change and bend and have the movie still work.

Marriages are so complicated that no one person is the culprit. But, I am really interested in class without really realizing that I am. It's more the manifestations of different classes that interest me.

It seemed like there were so many options in filmmaking before. If they don't want to make it, well okay, there's a hundred other places we can try. I'm not a producer and I don't even know the places my producer goes to, thankfully. But I think there are far fewer options now to releasing a movie theatrically or to getting the financing.

Well, I tried being in front of the camera as a student and that was terrifying. But the press stuff about me growing up on his [film] sets has been exaggerated. I was an extra as a kid and I was also a PA [production assistant] on one of his movies, so I was lucky to get production experience. But I was nowhere near him.

What are we taking from people and what do we give is a life-long struggle, I think, for most of us. Who are we? Do we like who we are? Do we know who we are? Do we care? Does anyone care? That's such a big topic. I could tackle that in many movies. So could other people.

I never get tired of looking at her [Catherine Keener] and it always surprises me, despite how many hours of film I've shot on that face. She's fantastic. She does comedy and tragedy so equally well. She wears her feeling so on the surface for both. I try to stop myself from casting her but I just keep coming back to her. She's just so fantastic to work with.