James L. Brooks

“We can go years without making a picture, and that's fine.”

“When it comes to being confused about what to do about life, that's been me and will always be me.”

“If you write about a process you're about to go through, market research, and you go through it, and it doesn't echo what you've written about, you've failed.”

“A lot of things just aren't true any more.”

“Great things that can happen when you're doing a movie.”

“I saw 'Annie Hall' with a group of people working in comedy and television. We were all stunned. Stunned. It was like watching a spaceship land. That something that funny could also be that beautiful.”

“I don't know whether I have ideas all the time. I think I'm curious about things all the time; I think I'm always curious, and I think I'm always interested in whatever passes by, and I know I tend to think about things, and I tend to talk about things, and sometimes that takes root and gives me something to chase.”

“I think television keeps on being a place where writers can go, and if they're successful, they can have their way, and they can have creative freedom.”

“Tone is up for grabs in what we do - what's the tone of the scene.”

“I'm a journalism junkie.”

“I worked for CBS News in the aftermath of all the greatness. I actually brought coffee to Edward R. Murrow.”

“Linking up the things you were with the things you become is what growing up is.”

“Kids in general make things fresh and alive and they have this great appreciation for, Holy mackerel, we're making a movie!”

“A television job that's working is the best job in the world.”

“I had no road map for fatherhood; I had no personal history to draw from.”

“Making an authentic film about anything is difficult.”

“I value comedy. I value somebody who can be funny.”

“I think you have a pact with an audience in every picture, and I think the pact is to try and be truthful and to be real.”

“With music, you can put sophisticated thoughts in a child's head - it gives you a whole new avenue to express ideas.”

“Media reporting denied privacy to anybody doing what I do for a living. It was no longer possible to work on your picture in privacy.”