Alexandra Cassavetes

“Love is a component of many different things - the baggage you bring, the moment, what you need in your life, seeing someone as a portal for understanding everything, and all the intensity that brings. It's not something to count on and act like it's a stable thing.”

“I think the reason vampire movies have been so popular over time is that they share so many parallels with human beings.”

“I don't know about relationships. Maybe I'm supposed to travel and make films and meet people and have adventures instead.”

“It's sweet to hear, but anyone who says that they want to be the next John Cassavetes is crazy. He had it so tough. No one would want to walk a step in his shoes. Believe me - I wouldn't.”

“I think vampires are different from human beings, but they're sentenced to eternity on this planet. They have the same confusion about love and permanence, integrity, and denial. These qualities really are the same in vampire characters as in humans. I think they're universal themes.”

“I feel too strongly about rearranging reality in a movie. It gives me peace.”

“I went to this Episcopalian school, and one day I came home and asked my mom, 'What religion are we?' She looked at me and said, 'We're artists.'”

“I sort of forgot about 'Z Channel' after it went off the air in 1989, but once Jason Resnick of Focus Features made the suggestion, I became obsessed all over again. I still am. I'll probably be this way until I'm 80, babbling about 'Z Channel.'”

“It's a bloody shame that all the video stores have gone, I'll tell you. Everything's so mechanical now. It's all so if-you-liked-this-then-you'll-like-this. There's no picking something out, or finding some brilliant person to open up new worlds for you.”

“People are fascinated with eternal life and physical power - the idea of having no vulnerability. We all feel small and powerless in the world at times, so the temptation to be a vampire is compelling.”

“I've noticed that when people make vampire movies, they're always determining which of the rules they're going to stick to and which they'll abandon.”

“I think at its most mature, love is a very bourgeois state. There is something about luxuriating in the nest of love that people fall into naturally.”

“The vampire movies I embraced as a kid used vampirism as a metaphor that expressed deep sadness and a lot of human qualities.”

“I wanted to make an adult vampire film, not something for children.”

“I think vampires would want to find a way to stay attached to the living, the way human beings do, and that is through love, interrelations and meaning.”

“I'm not cynical, but I don't really want to have a boyfriend or husband again.”

“I tell myself, 'If I can wake up each day and be excited about what I'm doing, then I must be happy.' But then again, maybe I'm in denial.”

“I just want to make something that is true to itself and that interests me; otherwise, how can I have the audacity to think it's going to interest anybody else?”

“My taste in films doesn't lead financers to think they are going to make a zillion dollars.”

“I think of making a movie in such a romantic way.”