Top 83 Quotes & Sayings by Ryan Murphy
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Ryan Murphy.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Part of being an artist is being able to write about the world you live in and the times that you've been a part of.
I've always been sort of, 'I love it,' or, 'I hate it,' and I think, as a result, I've always been a polarizing person. You either love me or you hate me. There's not a lot of 'Hmmm.'
Well, I'm from Indiana. So to me when I was a little kid growing up, Cincinnati was the glamorous New York of it all.
When I got my overall deal at Fox, I got amazing bosses in John Landgraf and Dana Walden and Peter Rice. For the first time ever, they said, 'Don't change who you are; be who you are. And write something you want to watch.' That thing was 'Glee,' and it took off from there.
You know, I'm very particular about my sheets. They have to be one hundred percent cotton, with a high thread count. Only cotton. No flannel.
Even though 'Glee' is sometimes a hard road, I am very excited about writing a multi-year arc.
I think when you take the big swings - and I've done plenty of big swings that I was told were never going to work - those are always the things that break through.
I wanted to create a culture that allowed my children to see the world differently, if only from a strictly visual perspective: to have a child see a room where half of the people are women and minorities is so powerful. I think everyone wants for their children a world that's better than the one they came up in.
I actually think actors both are drawn to playing real-life historical people and are terrified.
I lean into fear because I feel like that excites me as an artist.
When I was starting out in Hollywood, everything was such a battle.
I started off in this business in 1998, and I didn't fit in. There was no place for me, and I always felt like an oddball. Nobody really understood my work or what I wanted to do in my references.
I love 'Girls' on HBO because it's brave and cool.
All the things I have done at one point or another have fallen out of fashion, and there's nothing better than trying to bring something back to life.
I am not going to do anything unless I am afraid of it.
Originally, 'Popular' was going to be a movie.
I came of age during AIDS and the terror of that and the sadness and the death and the overwhelming despair.
When I talk to young people, I always tell them the biggest lesson I learned was that you shouldn't care about the outcome. If it fails, it fails. Every failure will groom you for your next big reward.
I love Olivia De Havilland. She is forever a lady.
I think I have a pattern of nice and lovely and then dark and twisted.
It's interesting when women direct. The work is better. They ask more people to participate.
The greatest thing that you have when you're a showrunner is this opportunity to create worlds.
I started off as a journalist when I was young and I did not get paid unless I wrote three stories a day.
I've always felt I've related to women deeply because of being gay and feeling like there was always somebody trying to oppress me, to keep me down, to put me in my place.
The Hollywood thing is - like, it feels like the biggest thing in the world, and yet it's the smallest town.
You can't be the enfant terrible when you have the enfant at home.
I'll ask the writers' room who they voted for Emmy awards, but I'll never ask who they voted for president.
Tone is everything in TV.
I had been accepted to film school, but my parents couldn't afford it, and yet they made too much money for me to get a scholarship.
I was an altar boy, with a very strict father. And movies were always my escape.
I love crispy, cool sheets.
I had a very rocky, difficult, emotional childhood with my parents.
I love Larry Kramer's advocacy, and I love him as a person, and I think young people need to see that story.
Just because you have a baby on your hip - or one on the way or two at home - doesn't mean you can't go after your dreams.
I remember I always felt much more safe standing up on a chair and singing in front of my mother than I was in front of my father!
I was very much raised by my grandmother, who actually was Bette Davis - looked like her, acted like her, talked like her. Probably, it was just out of my love and affection for my grandmother that I was interested in Bette.
People think I'm just sort of this P. T. Barnum, razzle-dazzle guy. They think I go out of my way to be outlandish and theatrical at the expense of having emotions. They don't get that there's another side to me, and I keep trying to show that other side.
With all of my work, it always takes a while for people to get it.
I feel like I grew up in such a big way in the past couple of years, in a way that I never thought I would. You can't be the enfant terrible when you have the enfant at home.
I think John Landgraf sees things in the same way I do. We see eye to eye on a lot.
If you look at 'American Horror Story' or 'Crime Story,' these are visceral, action-packed, sometimes bloody episodes of television. They're not 'feminine.' They're not about sexy women sitting around looking beautiful, drinking lattes. These episodes are calling cards to show companies like Marvel, 'Look, women can do these kind of movies.'
I do work with a lot of women in my company, and I write a lot of roles for women over 40. I think, in 'Feud' alone, we have 15 roles for women over 40, which I'm very proud about.
At the end of the day, a divorce is a divorce, and a break-up is a break-up. They are essentially small matters of the heart. They are human stories.
I don't think there's ever a winner in a feud. It's about emotional pain and an inability to conquer the pain.
I would much rather have watched Jill Clayburgh in 'An Unmarried Woman' than 'Star Wars.' Even though I saw that movie when I was 11, I related emotionally to being left and thrown in a trash can on the side of the road. Her damage - I got it. I didn't understand Han Solo at all.
I've gotten death threats, yes. I have. I think anytime you shine a spotlight on homosexuality or minorities and you try and say they are as normal or as worthy as acceptance as others, the people who are on the fringe don't like that and they will come after you. And they have come after me.
I think everyone wants for their children a world that's better than the one they came up in.
I feel every day that everything I create - everything I do - I want it to be a risk. I think when you take the big swings - and I've done plenty of big swings that I was told were never going to work - those are always the things that break through.
The only way to get through the life I had was just to have a big head of steam and determination.
Yeah, at home it's all moonbeams and puppy-dog tails, so I guess I do have a darker side - and I like writing about it.
You've not felt the pain of rejection until a television show based on your own life is canceled.
I'm passionate about actors, and I'm passionate about showing actors in different lights.
I feel every day that everything I create - everything I do - I want it to be a risk.
I'd never had a mentor in Hollywood. Men have always been in control of the business, and they usually mentor people who are like them - but two inches shorter.
I formed this thing called the Half Foundation, and what I tried to do is quantify hiring practices in Hollywood. Half the population is women, so half of the storytellers should be women. Fifty percent of all the directors in my company are women, and it will forever be that way.
I'm very black and white about what I like or don't like, and I've always been that way.
When I was growing up my favorite show was 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', and I loved all the stuff that Norman Lear did.
All the big successes of my career have been ideas that, on paper, you think, 'Well nobody's going to go for this because that genre is so dead.'
As a showrunner, you can never be a 'maybe.' When I do movies, there is a lot of, 'Maybe' and, 'Let's investigate that.' But for TV, it has to be yes or no.
I loved musicals, and I loved Barbra Streisand, and I loved Louis Malle. My tastes were very bizarre, but the thing they all had in common is that they took me out of my life and made me feel something.
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