Quotes from Alexander Payne

In a sense, 'Schmidt' is the most Omaha of my films. But have I gotten it right? I'm not sure. Did Fellini get Rome right? Did Ozu get Tokyo right?

In a general sense, to convert any short story, novel, play, or opera into a movie, you have to re-rig it. Even though they're all narratives over time, they're very different forms.

If you were falling in love and you could go back in time and relive a day and see the banal things you did that you'd forgotten about, you'd weep, looking at that day.

The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.

The most heinous shift in American films is that they reinforce good things like 'couples' and 'relationships.'

I'm hoping one day I can make one really good film.

Marketing has supplanted story as the primary force behind the worthiness of making a film, and that's a very sad thing. It's film only as a function of consumerism rather than as an important component of our culture, and that's everywhere around the world.

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

The actors are the greatest executors of tone in a film. They're the most important cinematic component.

Life mixes tones all the time.

In real life, I myself am kind of a rambling guy. I like to travel.

You begin a film more with questions than with direct intentions. It's more of an exploration and discovery.

I mean, look, I love movies, not just the ones I make... In fact, I don't like the movies I make very much.

Jesuits encourage an intellectual rigor in a way that I like.

There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.

The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.

I still have energy and some degree of youth, which is what a filmmaker needs.

Even if we die at 100, we're still dying young. I want at least 700 years. There's a lot of travelling and books to read and movies to see. I'm not going to squeeze it all in in 85 years.

I'm attracted to short screenplays. Nobody really wants a film to be over two hours, or at least I don't.

I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.

I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.

A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.

They say you can do honest, sincere work for decades, but you're given in general a 10-year period when what you do touches the zeitgeist - when you're relevant. And I'm aware of that, and I don't want my time to go by.

I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.