John Wilson

“The documentary in reality very much operates with these stereotypes in mind. You're either good or evil, you're either righteous or a criminal.”

“When I moved back to New York as an adult, my first place had bed bugs, and I was also really lonely and all this stuff. I was afraid that all these miserable experiences would just be a net loss if I didn't turn them into something. My logic was that if something positive came out of it, I wouldn't regret that it happened.”

“A lot of the bed bug industry is actually directed towards prevention rather than extermination.”

“New York City is home to some of the most beautiful, desperate, and selfish people on the planet, which makes it the perfect place to avoid relationships.”

“A lot of documentaries are about something that already happened, but I think people are kind of afraid to let the story find them. It's scary because you might not end up with something good.”

“You know, a lot of my favorite moments in old, you know, fiction films or documentaries are the parts that capture things that change extremely quickly and fluctuate, you know, wildly.”

“I mean, people just have a lot on their mind. Once they've accepted terms with the camera, you just kind of let it roll until they don't want to talk anymore.”

“Filming is the one thing I don't regret. I regret so many other things that I do, but I never regret filming something.”

“Saturday Night' is one of my favorite books ever.”

“I chose New York as a homebase because I grew up in and around here. I can be critical of it because I have this personal relationship. I also have a complicated relationship with New York, which makes it really rich material.”

“I personally am inspired and motivated by all of these documentarians that came before me like Penelope Spheeris, Frederick Wiseman, and Nick Broomfield.”

“I think leaving people wanting more is the best thing you can do sometimes.”

“In 'How to Work Out,' I deal with the impact that the show has had on my life, and the fantasy you live with as you try to reach a certain status artistically.”

“You know, it was painful in the moment when 'Jingle Berry' failed. But, you know, over the years, it became empowering in this weird way because I realized that that's not what I wanted to do anymore. I didn't want to make the kind of comedy like that. I didn't want to make fictional films. I didn't want to direct actors.”

“The constant struggle with loneliness is something that I feel like a lot of people can identify with.”

“I've been making movies my whole life pretty much since I was 10 or 12, with my dad's movie camera that he gave me - or that I took from him, I guess. I would just make funny little videos with my neighborhood friends for years. Then I went to Binghamton University, because they had a very small experimental film program there.”

“I mean, I did have a good time doing the a cappella stuff when I was in college, and I think it totally served a purpose socially for me. But I felt like I could have lived a long happy life without ever having to publicly acknowledge my collegiate a cappella career.”

“You can waste your life playing it safe and the real danger is never what you expect it to be.”

“I was so obsessed with purity, going into the project of 'How To' as it was on HBO, and I was really strict about it. It was this nagging thing that I couldn't escape whenever there was any manipulation done, and it made me feel really dishonest - and I was also having some other trust issues with people in my life at the time.”

“There is a lot of weird profiling that happens in the casting process of any big production, and I don't think there's enough conversation surrounding that.”