Quotes from Spike Jonze

I think the thing that is meaningful is when I can tell that someone's been affected by the movie or by anything I made.

When I'm making stuff, the thing that excites me most is not the result, but the process and trying to do something I've never done before.

I think because I'm not a parent, my most immediate connection to childhood is my memory of my own childhood.

If you focus your energy on the camera, it takes away from the time you have to focus on the performances.

The invention of the iPod changes how you use music. Suddenly you have music everywhere.

I skated and rode bikes on ramps, and my mom was always super supportive. She was one of the only divorced moms in the neighborhood, so all the other parents looked down upon her for letting her kids do that kind of thing.

On everything I do I'm always taking someone's money, whether it's a movie studio or a record label. Somebody's paying for it, and I'm always respectful of that. But I'm never going to compromise.

I started directing videos at the same time that Michel Gondry was starting to direct videos, and I watched what he'd do. They all seemed to be pushing some new visual effects idea, but never just for spectacle. They all captured a feeling.

When I was 20 years old, I had no plans to ever be a filmmaker.

I want to make films without a single clear message, and films that are as close as possible to what it feels like to be alive. At least to me.

I think, as you're growing up, your emotions are just as deep as they are when you're an adult. You're ability to feel lonely, longing, confused or angry are just as deep. We don't feel things more as we get older.

I don't know what life was like 1,000 years ago, but I imagine there was the same struggle: people trying to connect with each other.

Is artificial intelligence less than our intelligence?

You can go on Nike's website and choose exactly what fabrics and colours and shapes you want your sneakers to come in.

If you compromise what you're trying to do just a little bit, you'll end up compromising a little more the next day or the next week, and when you lift your head you're suddenly really far away from where you're trying to go.

Pop music, I think there's a reason why kids connect to it.

Some of the best ideas come from sheer discovery, and not by some masterminded, preconceived genius.

I think there is something about... unless you come from a really evolved family that allowed you to talk about your feelings and felt like a safe environment, then you aren't really prepared to do that when you grow up.

Obviously technology has become such a big presence in our lives and, I definitely know, in my life.

We can empathize as deeply as we can empathize.

I love people that willfully defy what you're supposed to be and create their own definition of their selves.

Even in this world where you're getting everything you need and having this nice life, there's still loneliness and longing and disconnection.

As a director, you never get to watch other directors work, and you also don't get to collaborate with other directors that much.

I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.