Spike Jonze Quotes

If you compromise what you're trying to do just a little bit, you'll end up compromising a little more the next day or the next week, and when you lift your head you're suddenly really far away from where you're trying to go.

I have a home phone number, and I like it! It's like a throwback already.

I'm always inspired by other filmmakers, whether it's a shot or the way they handle tone.

On everything I do I'm always taking someone's money, whether it's a movie studio or a record label. Somebody's paying for it, and I'm always respectful of that. But I'm never going to compromise.

There were times in 'Adaptation' during the editing where I really thought, 'Okay, well, this was a noble failure. I tried to do something good, but this is not going to work.'

Music is thousands and thousands of years old and I don't think that basic, primitive connection to the language of music ever changes.

I loved Fugazi, the D.C. hardcore band, because they always did everything themselves. They had their own label, and the CDs always cost nine dollars, the T-shirts always cost eight dollars, the shows always cost five dollars, no major label.

I am better at math than spelling.

When I'm making stuff, the thing that excites me most is not the result, but the process and trying to do something I've never done before.

There's great food everywhere, and even McDonald's uses nice wood now.

Kids are so fiercely opinionated, that if they love the Harry Potter books and they go see the movie, they'll be the first to say, 'That was wrong! They didn't get that right!' They're storytellers themselves. They're critics. They're going to have the critical opinion.

I skated and rode bikes on ramps, and my mom was always super supportive. She was one of the only divorced moms in the neighborhood, so all the other parents looked down upon her for letting her kids do that kind of thing.

I want to make films without a single clear message, and films that are as close as possible to what it feels like to be alive. At least to me.

I think the way Win Butler writes, I really identify with it. He writes very emotionally and very cinematically, and I just connect with his sensibility.

I just want to be who I am, as I am.

I like naps. I don't drink coffee.

I feel like you only have so much time to make stuff. I'm definitely aware of that. I'm also excited about it.

Maurice Sendak never - I remember he said something that was very striking because it's something I never thought about. I always loved his work, and he said, 'I don't really view myself as a children's book author. I just try and write about childhood as honestly as I can.'

When I was 20 years old, I had no plans to ever be a filmmaker.

Any conversation I have with anybody that's real is always revealing and inspiring.

The invention of the iPod changes how you use music. Suddenly you have music everywhere.

What I learned from the Beastie Boys was to be independent. They set up their own world separate from the label. They built their own studio.

I love people that willfully defy what you're supposed to be and create their own definition of their selves.

I like people that define their own values. I am much more interested in somebody who has their own definition of what they value, their own definition of what success is, their own definition of what love is.

After 'Where the Wild Things Are,' I guess I felt more confident as a writer.

I think at the beginning of a project, you decide if you're in love with the idea and what it's about, or what you think it's about at that time at least. Then you commit to it, and once you've commit to it no matter what, no matter how many self doubts you have, you're in it. The ship's sailed, you can't turn around.

I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

As a director, you never get to watch other directors work, and you also don't get to collaborate with other directors that much.

I definitely check my phone for texts a lot - like, 'Did anyone text me? Is anyone thinking about me? Does anyone love me?'

I don't know what life was like 1,000 years ago, but I imagine there was the same struggle: people trying to connect with each other.

Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.

When you're close to somebody, you can never really know how they're experiencing the world.

We can empathize as deeply as we can empathize.

I'm always amazed when any actor can decipher my direction.

The world is becoming nicer and easier, but that doesn't mean we are any less lonely or any more connected.

I'm not a film-snob.

I'm fortunately not, like, typecast. I don't have to just do one kind of thing; I can do all kinds of things that reflect different parts of me.

I definitely liked the Muppets. I definitely liked Yoda in 'Empire Strikes Back' and Chewbacca. I don't know if I was a fan of puppets or those, like, specific characters.

Big emotions that are unexplained are really scary. At least to me.

I don't want to make a movie till I have an idea I have to make. I don't want to make a movie just to make a movie.

I think if something's emotionally real - and I'm not even talking about in movies or in art, but in life - you can't really argue with that, even if your intellectual mind might know differently.

I remember when MySpace came out. It did do something pretty incredible - which was unite people around the world with common interests and common tastes.

Be willing to get fired for a good idea.

I'm a little slow, so forgive me if I'm inarticulate.

As a parent, your perspective of childhood is through the eyes of this person that you care so much about and you just want the world to be great for them. You want their life to be easy and happy.

'Where The Wild Things Are,' I think I could have written on my own. When I brought Dave Eggers on, I already had 60 pages of notes. I technically could have, but I don't think I was ready to. I needed him to be there and help me.

I think, as you're growing up, your emotions are just as deep as they are when you're an adult. You're ability to feel lonely, longing, confused or angry are just as deep. We don't feel things more as we get older.

Every actor I've worked with I want to work with again.

Some of the best ideas come from sheer discovery, and not by some masterminded, preconceived genius.

The Beastie Boys are guys I loved before I met them, and when I got to know them, we started a magazine together, and we started making videos together, and a lot of it came out of us just cracking ourselves up, like going to the fake mustache store and buying fake mustaches.