Ethan Coen

“Whenever you're specific with ethnicity or religion, people find reason to take offence.”

“'I Love You, Man' was kind of funny.”

“It's very weird when people you know are in 'Star Wars.'”

“That cowboy look - the hat and the bandana - that's not a fashion statement. That clothing is purely practical.”

“It's always tempting to cast someone you enjoy being with. You've got to hang out with these people for a number of months.”

“It was never an ambition to grow up and win an Academy Award, so when it happens, you go, 'Weird!'”

“I have never had feeling in my toes. My uncle, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, once told me in confidence he had the same syndrome, leading me to believe it is genetic.”

“We wouldn't have done it if we didn't think we could have fun with it.”

“'Once Upon a Time in the West' is a great movie.”

“With 'The Big Lebowski,' we were really consciously thinking about doing a Raymond Chandler story, as much as it's about L.A.”

“Sergio Leone has this weird western opera thing.”

“Barton Fink is just too self-important as an artist to get much sympathy.”

“I think some superstars feel they get trapped in their established screen persona over and over again. That's what they get hired to do.”

“When the movie's done, you talk about either the score or source music over a particular scene, what might work. You just throw a piece of music over the scene, and we both listen to it.”

“In 'True Grit,' we had a vulture, a trained vulture... that was a pain and that was - even by vulture standards - probably a stupid vulture, and that was frustrating.”

“It's tough being a Jew.”

“What is striking in Minnesota is the invisible horizon line. On a grey day, when there's snow on the ground, the sky and the ground are one tone. Everyone appears to be hanging in mid-air.”

“We tend to do period stuff because it helps make it one step removed from boring everyday reality.”

“We go to the office every day when we're writing - or supposed to be writing. It's not always productive, and there's a lot of procrastinating, just staring at the wall, like any other writing. But we just make ourselves go to the office every day for more or less the whole day.”

“A writer, by definition, is pathetic.”