Top 107 Quotes & Sayings by Zal Batmanglij

Marvel's storytelling is much wilder than 'The OA's,' but no one talks about that.

On 'Sound of My Voice,' I was the first and last word, which is kind of a dictatorship. I like collectives, though.

You just have to make sure you keep living your life, challenging yourself, putting yourself in unusual experiences, thinking about what you're interested in doing, and going there.

We lived on anarchist farms, squatted in the inner city, and hopped rail cars. We wanted to see how other young people were creating meaning from their lives.

I thought 'Gone Baby Gone' was really modern in showing a couple going on an adventure.

I think if aliens came to Earth, we would laugh. If there was an alien technology, we would laugh.

Group think and groups in general allow you to more fully give yourself to something other than yourself and your betterment - to feel a sense of belonging. Now is this a good thing? I don't know, but it's something that is longed for, at least by me.

I hate Q&As. They make me feel awkward.

I'm very fascinated by genre.

When I was 14, I saw 'Terminator 2.' My mind was blown. What a beautiful movie. I found it really deep and also so entertaining.

Violence doesn't interest me very much.

I think disparaging something you don't understand, while a very normal thing - I expect more from serious people.

I remember in grade school having a group of friends and enjoying that sense of community, enjoying living in an imaginary world that wasn't just by yourself or your sibling but a whole group of people.

It doesn't really matter what someone's hair looks like or if the sound is perfect. Every director who's made a couple of movies knows that, because you can replace the sound. Or, like, any one shot is not that important, because they all add up together.

That's the beauty of filmmaking: it's extremely humbling because you do it all over again all the time.

I remember being a kid, I was a little kid when my dad took me to 'Munchausen.' I guess he took my whole family, but I kind of didn't want to go for some reason. Then we got there, and I was so mesmerized by the movie, and I was really taken by the young Sarah Polley. I didn't realize until many, many years later that it was Sarah Polley.

Sarah Polley's 'Stories We Tell,' James Ponsoldt's 'The Spectacular Now,' Destin Daniel Cretton's 'Short Term 12' - these are really important movies.

I think about a lot of my favorite directors, and I think about their first films, and I have great admiration for the earthiness of those films.

'Terminator' is one of my favorite films, and so is 'Terminator 2.'

The art house is an elitist idea.

The first time I ever tried edamame, I thought it was gross. I didn't understand the hairy skin. It didn't taste good to me. Now I scarf down a bowl of edamame when I sit down at a restaurant, and I don't think twice about it.

I don't know if any specific religion is the one to subscribe to. I'm not saying, one way or the other. I don't want to get involved in that. But, I think having faith in this experience we are having as a group of people on Earth helps a lot.

You think it's so cool to have movie stars in your movie, but they become people.

It's so hard to shoot wealth. It doesn't show up on film.

It's awesome to be part of a gay family.

I wanted to be a filmmaker, so my parents helped me by encouraging me to save my allowance. So I bought my first video camera, and I would make movies, but I never made a movie that I finished until I was in college. There was no expectation, but I would make movies every day.

I think if there's anything 2016 has taught me, it's that we have a real hard time with women in our society; we have a hard time with the feminine.

Existing outside of irony is so hard.

It's funny how you never know who you're going to share your life with.

I think we're really hungry for family in America, especially when I feel like people are really pulled apart from their families.

'The Terminator' is grounded in so much realism. It's again a story that centers around a woman that isn't a 'woman's picture' necessarily. I found it really thrilling, both 'Terminator 1' and '2.' When you watch it it's such fine storytelling.

'The East' could easily be a TV show.

Any director who's willing to be brave not only in terms of subject matter but also in terms of being emotional and moving you is what inspires me.

The country gets so beat up in the media. It's worth remembering how much we love America.

Whatever you think of Edward Snowden, it took bravery to do what he did.

We want to make a 100 million dollar movie that we have created, in the way James Cameron or Chris Nolan does. It's so inspiring when high-quality auteurs are writing and directing those movies. That's pretty cool.

I'm a gay man of colour.

'Sound of My Voice' had been written before 'Another Earth.'

I think we have to go through a lot of rituals in order to fill the gap of meaning in our lives.

I like how collaborative and cult-like filmmaking is. It's really family-oriented, tribe-oriented.

A director really doesn't deal with performance that much, especially if you deal with great actors. Their work is the performance. What you're helping them with is all the stuff they cannot be in control of.

I think that all the powerful religions are pretty much the same. People like to pretend they are very different, but they are not. They are really about believing in something bigger than yourself, something that's unseen, and about having some faith.

I don't want to make a 100 hundred million dollar movie I have no stake in.

I'm just interested in carving out a meaningful life.

I love James Cameron. I love what he does.

If you really want to have an anarchist experience, make a movie with a studio.

The best dumpster meal I has was the first one I had.

I love being on a movie set.

Claustrophobia is a theme that I feel is really rife in 'Sound of my Voice' and struggling to come up for air from that feeling.

We would meet truck drivers, and they were like, ''Orange Is the New Black' is my favorite show.' And we're like, 'What? This looks like a Red State, Trump-voting guy, and he loves 'Orange Is the New Black?'' I think that's the power of storytelling.

A novel is both a story and a piece of writing. A movie is a story and a piece of filmmaking.

I always think that 'Sound of My Voice' is a movie about the crumbs in 'Hansel and Gretel.' You know, those crumbs. It's about finding your way out of the claustrophobia and alienation of modern life.

What I'm drawn to most as a filmmaker are these tribes that are seen as 'fringe' cultures. We live in a society where many young people feel alienated, and these family constructs are an antidote to that.

Nobody can seem more politicised and glamorous than the baby-boomers. But their kids are surprisingly robust and late bloomers.

It's not easy to learn to trust someone and let someone trust you.

At AFI, you make three cycle films your first year, and then you make a thesis film your second year, and I watched Darren Aronofsky's cycle films and was blown away - there was a young Lucy Liu, who was just part of that generation. And I just wanted to be part of that tradition.

We entered 'Lucid Grey' into the Georgetown festival on April 27, 2001. Now 'Sound of My Voice' is opening on April 27, 11 years later. It couldn't have happened in a more perfectly cinematic way.

You can't just express yourself and it becomes a movie. You have to get beyond that.

When I was 17, I grew from being something like 5'2'' to 6 foot - I grew a lot - and I don't remember growing... I feel like the same thing is true of writing. You're waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney, but you just fall asleep at some point, and then the magic happens.

I think that 'Sound of My Voice' is about the claustrophobia of living today, and how do you crawl out of the claustrophobia towards the light?