Top 70 Quotes & Sayings by Todd Solondz

Storytelling is the only studio movie where the censorship is perfectly clear, the only studio movie with a big red box covering up a shot. I take pride in that - and, of course, in having avoided the fate of Eyes Wide Shut.

In particular, people have trouble understanding where I stand in relation to my characters, and very often this gets reduced to me making vicious fun of them.

Usually the audience has no idea that the censored version of whatever movie they're watching isn't the original.

When part of what you're trying to get at is the truth hidden under a taboo, or when you want to nail a hypocrisy, laughter is a very useful tool. I want to show the painful side of existence, but there is no question I also want to make people laugh.

With Storytelling, at least, it's explicit: this is what the censors say American citizens, no matter what age, are not permitted to see, even though it can be seen by other people all over the world. I suppose you could call it a political statement.

Some directors hardly talk to the actors at all.

People can't help how they look.

One thing I want to say: I don't like victim stories and I don't write them.

Part of it has to do with this business of being approached in public. I have a distinctive look - it's partly the glasses I wear - and people seem to remember me once they've seen me.

I don't like telling people where I stand on this, although I'm surprised anybody wonders. I suppose if I say I'm pro-choice, if I make that clear, it let's the audience off the hook, then they can sort of relax. Okay, it's alright he's pro-choice then I can enjoy this.

Well, so far, at least, my own ideas always take priority over those of other writers. As long as the well doesn't run dry, I imagine this will be the case.

A palindrome is a word or pattern that instead of developing in different directions it folds in on itself so that the beginning and end mirror each other, that they are the same.

I mean, I don't want to sound - of course it's very nice, people come up and say appreciative things about my work. But the loss, in terms of privacy and anonymity, is no small thing to me.

I admit there's an element of brutality in all my work - it's part of the truth about human existence I always want to explore - but the last thing I'm trying to do is put on some kind of freak show, inviting people to get off on other people's pain and humiliation.

Optimism is not inherently a superior way of viewing the world. Certainly doctors will say it might be better for one's physical health to be an optimist. But, morally speaking it may not be appropriate in certain circumstances.

Like everything, what compels one to put pen to paper is a great question.

Casting is everything. If you get the right people they make you look good.

The ability to take pleasure in one's life is a skill and is a kind of intelligence. So intelligence is a hard thing to evaluate and it manifests itself in so many different ways. I do think the ability to know how to live a life and not be miserable is a sign of that.

The funny thing is, strangers still seem to feel comfortable coming up to me and saying things, but now usually it's because they recognize me, and they say nice things.

When I want to show the kind of meanness people are capable of, to make it believable I find I have to tone it down. It's in real life that people are over the top.

When I'm asked who my audience is, I say someone with an open mind, which is not a vacant one and sometimes a liberal mind is not the same thing as an open one.

But anonymity is very important to me, and I don't want to be recognized in public more than I already am.

As Mark Weiner puts it, whether you gain 50 pounds or lose 50 pounds, whether you have a sex change operation for that matter, that it doesn't matter, that there is some part of ourselves that we cannot escape.

I mean, there are many other directors who are probably both more skilled and excited to adapt novels or work within certain genre conventions. I'd like to do that kind of work someday, but for better or worse I'm too drawn by my own material.

It is true that the movie is perhaps my most politically-charged. The story is thrust into motion by the idea of what do you do when your 13 year old daughter comes home pregnant. And not only is she pregnant, but she wants to keep the baby.

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.

And that's just what I'm saying. I would never want to be like certain people, who change the way they dress, go out in disguise, wear a big floppy hat and dark shades. I would hate that.

But you're right, I did think about acting more and then decided against it.

All I mean is, I'm not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it's not very loud. That doesn't mean I don't like the movie.

So far, at least, I haven't found a way to tell my kind of stories without making them both sad and funny.

Art has a smaller audience than, say, movies or other forms of mass consumption. But that doesn't mean the work doesn't have an impact in a way that transcends just a few cultural arbiters.

People call you "director," but it really should be "economic manager." Because everything is "Well, we can do another take here, but then you're gonna lose that shot over there." Or "The sun's going down, sorry, you're outta luck. We can't afford to." You know? And meanwhile, how do you get the performer's performance? I'm thinking the whole time all about "How can I get my day done?" And my performances are primarily a result of casting the right people at the right time in the right parts. And then I do little modifications.

I've always said that I myself am not the best audience for my own work, because I'm just not that receptive to comedy.

It's one of the great gifts of having so little money that you are able to make these kinds of radical conceits that you could never afford to do had you had a reasonable budget,.

Some people will of course accuse me of misanthropy and cynicism. I can't celebrate humanity but I'm not out to indict it either. I just want to expose certain truths.

I can't please everybody and I don't try to. If I can please myself that's enough. For the rest, I just hope for the best.

If I grew up in a different background, I could see myself getting a gun and shooting an abortionist. That's my job, to imagine what could happen, what can make people go in different directions.

What's most insidious about MTV is that it commodifies precisely those things that young people believe are subversive. In other words, subversity itself has become a commodity. It's all a way to trick young people into believing that there's something unique about what they do, but this is all completely a corporately designed maneuver.

The ability to take pleasure in one's life is a skill and is a kind of intelligence.

At eleven I was at the peak of my creative powers: I was writing stories and playlets, putting together poetryprojects. I was absorbed by my 'work.' At twelve I was no longer reading or writing, just counting off days and checking them off. I was interested in survival.

We say we embrace humanity, but what does that mean? We are all defined by our limits, so to what extent can we embrace all this? Because we all contain within ourselves equally the capacity for kindness, as much as for cruelty or evil. And the best of us are able to suppress those baser impulses, instincts. That's the war within.

I admit there’s an element of brutality in all my work - it’s part of the truth about human existence I always want to explore - but the last thing I’m trying to do is put on some kind of freak show, inviting people to get off on other people’s pain and humiliation.

I don't have a formula. Every time an actor wants me to hold their hand, I hold their hand. If they say, "Stay," I say "Okay, respect." You know? "I'm right over here." A kid, if I need to give a line-reading, I'll start acting out the part for the kid and just mimic the kid. You know? Whatever it takes.

A movie takes on its own life, and you have to respect that and be open to it.

So much of what a pet is about for us is that it becomes a vessel for yearnings, dreams, illusions, hopes and so forth. It's a projection of the ultimate innocence and purity. That's why it's hard to see a dog in its dogness. That's why, when some harm comes to a dog, it's much harder for an audience to deal with that, more so than dealing with harm that comes to a child or anything human.

The funny thing is, strangers still seem to feel comfortable coming up to me and saying things, but now usually it’s because they recognize me, and they say nice things.

That is definitely a misunderstanding between me and a part of my audience. To be honest, I am often unsettled by the responses some people have had to my movies, and that includes many people who like them.

For me, New Jersey is kind of a mythical place. It's emblematic of a certain aspect of American life. Florida is the same way. It's where people go to recreate, to reinvent themselves. It's what California used to be. I think Florida is still a place to erase the past.

I always have to presume that each movie is my last movie because I never know if I'll get money again.

What makes me angry is the idea that people would be going to a movie because of what I said about it. It makes me feel, I don't know, arrogant, self-important, self-aggrandizing, whatever. Like I'm being used.

I think there are many advantages to not knowing any of my prior work. The narrative threads, I think, are totally accessible to anyone who may never have heard of me. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end - I don't think there's going to be any confusion there.

I think, in fact, there's a plus and a minus to knowing my prior work, Happiness and so forth. The plus is of course you can see how I play with the characters, the storylines, and the way things play off each other. And the minus is that it makes you a little bit more self-conscious, that you're not able to enter the movie as it exists and lives and breathes, because you're so busy making references, connections that you're not able to release yourself from and take the film on your own terms.

What makes me put pen to paper? You know, that's the million-dollar question. I've been writing since I've been reading. It's not a question I think that's even meant to be answered, but it's something you always seek to discover the answer to. And the process of filmmaking is one of discovery, and self-discovery at that. Pleasure... it's not exactly what I would call fun, but it's absorbing.

There are a lot of ideas I have that I think would be very marketable and commercial, but they're not as compelling to me as the ones that are unmarketable, uncommercial, and unprofitable.

Casting is great fun, except for the business of it. I love the casting process. I love the editing process. I love working with the music. And even prep is very exciting. But once you get there and the clock is ticking, all it is is stress.

Every time you try to make another movie, you never know what will come of it. I can't say it ever gets easier, but it is in it's own way gratifying. I think that because no one movie that you make ever quite satisfies you, you're always feeling, "Next time I can get it right."

People cant help how they look.

I always make mistakes and I always fix things up, as best I can, in the cutting room.

You try to make them comfortable so they can do what they're best at, and make them shine. You always want to make an actor shine. I'm of the mind that there's no one - you, your mother, anyone, that if in the right place at the right time in the right context, couldn't shine in a movie. And so if it means, "Oh, I have to make them uncomfortable," then whatever it takes to get what I need up onscreen. It's all in the service of the story.

You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.