Quotes from Paul Thomas Anderson

I don't think it's a director's job to peek behind the curtain too much.

I'm not really a Sundance baby, but they helped me so much I feel I have to acknowledge it.

I always had a dream about trying to make a movie that had no dialogue in it, that was just music and pictures. I still haven't done it yet, but I tried to get close in the beginning.

If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you'd be the first person in the history of the world.

Of course, I'm no dummy.

How do I respond to criticism? Critically. I listen to all criticism critically.

No, really. Just do it. You have some kind of weird reasons that are okay.

So with 'There Will Be Blood,' I didn't even really feel like I was adapting a book. I was just desperate to find stuff to write.

I remember being taught in school that you would underline things that you liked. I remember just underlining everything as a kid, thinking, 'This has all gotta be important!' I would just underline the whole thing!

Clinton used to like to get out of the White House a lot. He would take night trips to McDonald's, and stuff like that. I think he wanted to get out of the house.

I don't get a sense of American pride. I just get a sense that everyone is here, battling the same thing - that around the world everybody's after the same thing, just some minor piece of happiness each day.

My writing has a lot to do with who I am, and what my life is like, and my relationships to people.

I have a feeling, one of those gut feelings, that I'll make pretty good movies the rest of my life.

To make a film, the final big collaborator that you have is the composer.

I had never read Upton Sinclair. I didn't read 'The Jungle' in high school or anything like that. But it's pretty terrific writing.

I'm completely aware of the fact that I'm a control freak.

It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called 'Rule Of The Bone.' I didn't do a very good job. I didn't really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.

It's a gamble you take, the risk of alienating an audience. But there's a theory - sometimes it's better to confuse them for five minutes than let them get ahead of you for 10 seconds.

I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will.

But I'd be lying if I didn't say that every time you go to make a film, you're desperate to either do it better than you did it last time or to not repeat yourself.

You have to be a brat in order to carve out your parameters, and you have to be a monster to anyone who gets in your way. But sometimes it's difficult to know when that's necessary and when you're just being a baby, throwing your rattle from the cage.

No matter how many times you do it, you don't get used to the sadness - for me at least - of coming to the end of a film.

I think my job is to try and be as honest as I can with what is in my mind and how I feel - I think that's what you're supposed to do, if you're a good writer. So I try to do that. I know I do that. I do do that.

I am always looking for that nuance, that moment of truth, and you can't really do that fast.