Quotes from Jill Soloway

I've always been really interested in secrets - how people find ways of doing things without telling anyone else in order to keep themselves feeling safe in the world.

Perfection would be something that you see in 'Architectural Digest.'

I'm very aware that just driving blindly towards money won't get me anything. I drive blindly towards making the world a better place.

People who don't have experience setting healthy boundaries, they have secrets instead.

When I went to Sundance for 'Afternoon Delight,' I came back feeling like I wanted to take my experience that I learned from directing and bring that into a series.

So many features at Sundance seemed to be powered more on the director's need to be a director than any particular story.

Normally, you cast a pilot, and you have to make compromises about being political about who you cast.

Something I've really been wanting to do, ever since 'Six Feet Under' ended, was create my own version of this idealized writer's room as well as the ideal family.

My interest in community is what fuels my work as a writer, more than just wanting to write or just wanting to have a TV show.

To me, it wasn't 'Star Wars' that shaped me; it was more 'Mary Tyler Moore' and, nowadays, 'Louie' and 'Girls.'

There are a lot of men with feminine leadership styles and there are a lot of women with masculine leadership styles.

I think generational trauma also plays a big part in the reactions to Israeli politics.

I'm glad that Jewish kids are taught about the Holocaust and other stories in our history, but I wonder if there are ways that this information and narrative can be transmitted differently.

I'm constantly confused about how to dress.

I just feel like content is content; people want to see it resonate.

I don't think it's a contradiction to find painfulness funny.

I think I've always had that struggle my whole life, of feeling a little bit more gender-neutral, feeling more comfortable as a creative person when I'm dressed like a boy, when I'm dressed more masculine.

Being pretty... I'm just confused about it. I mean, I love getting my nails done, but I also like dressing like a boy. I think I feel most myself when I'm mixing femininity and masculinity. Like, fifty-fifty.

From the moment you say 'action,' this is the fun part - things should happen that surprise you, excite you, scare you, turn you on, make you laugh. If things aren't surprising you, when you say 'cut,' whisper things to the actors that will make them do things that do surprise you.

Most people privilege the technology, almost as if actors are in service to the machine.

Femininity in and of itself - and the feminine - can be not only privileged, but honored or worshipped.

I think of myself as a producer. As a producer and as a showrunner, I already understand what it meant to gather people into a room and step back, to create the boundaries of 'everything's okay' to allow TV writers to go to their craziest places.

Whether you're writing television or movies, at some point you're going to encounter a male executive or investor who's going to say, 'I don't like that woman. She's unlikable.' And often, it's literally for being a regular human woman as opposed to an attracting human woman.

Normally, I think the people you would use on your first film, it would be a real struggle to bring them with you onto your television show. I just brought every single person with and expanded my little indie film world.