Max Joseph

“I think with social media and Instagram, people are able to see what's over the fence of everyone else, and it all seems within reach.”

“I feel like there are probably more films about white male friendships than almost any other types of movies.”

“It's funny - until 'Catfish,' none of my films were angled at young people except for the fact that they were angled at me and my contemporaries. And that's who I'm constantly making things for. I'm not imagining a younger audience I'm trying to impart wisdom to; I don't want to seem pretentious enough to think I can impart wisdom.”

“'In the Grace of Your Love' is a beautiful, eerie dance song.”

“If you're not catfishing someone for romantic reasons, then it's going to be hard to sympathize and be compassionate with someone who is doing it for revenge, who's doing it for fun and games, who's doing it because they want to be on TV.”

“Book stores drive me insane because I know that I will never be able to read everything I want to in my lifetime.”

“Trump's hate-filled rhetoric, blatant chauvinism, mean bullying, and open admiration of authoritarian rulers are more than just hints of what's to come if he is elected.”

“One thing we see a lot is this - the idea kids have now that they don't have to go to college. They don't have to get a real job. They feel they can become 'Internet famous' by taking selfies. They think they can become a star through social media. We see that a lot. You can succeed. But it takes time and persistence.”

“The safest person, sometimes, is a stranger on the Internet who lives in a different place. If they're a daily source of support and advice, no one really wants to lose that once they have it. If they know deep down that the person they're talking to isn't exactly who they say they are, it's not worth finding out.”

“When you grow up Jewish, you are exposed at a very young age to the phenomenon of anti-Semitism and its extreme manifestation in the Holocaust. I spent a lot of time as a little kid wondering how something like that could happen.”

“I find reggae is really nice in the morning.”

“As the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, our president is more than a list of policies. They set the tone of our national character.”

“The Juan McLean is great.”

“I think making electronic music isn't much different from writing a book or painting a picture or making a film. It's a creative process, and it's an art form.”

“When you make a movie with a lot of music in it, you can't always put all the songs onto the soundtrack. They just don't all fit.”

“No one believes that they're a bad person at the end of the day.”

“When I was 19, I did an internship in Los Angeles and lived with a friend of mine in the Valley.”

“For basically three years, I was doing 'Catfish' and 'We Are Your Friends' at the same time - it was like straddling two very long-term creative marriages. And when you're in a long-term creative commitment, you tend to daydream and fantasize about smaller creative flings that you want to have.”

“Manti Te'o got catfished. It happens.”

“I don't think the Internet is necessarily a dangerous place. It's only dangerous if you don't make people earn your trust. You can't take people at their word. You got to do a little digging and make sure to verify that you are talking to a real person or the person that you think you're talking to.”