interesting bits

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I took longer to figure out how to do this than anybody I've ever met.

-Ira Glass

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"I worry that every word I say only diminishes the reading experience."

- Daniel Clowes

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I always say to my students: "stop worrying so much about this macro issue, the 'theme' of the book; concern yourself with the details, because that's what we read for, what we love in what we read." - Zadie Smith

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"One common mistake -- the belief that to draw a cartoon is to draw someone sillier than oneself -- must be avoided at all costs."

- Hayao Miyazaki

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It is high time for writers -- and especially true artists -- to admit that it is impossible to explain anything.

Anton Chekhov, letter to Alexei Suvorin, 1888

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Interviewer: Would you ever consider trying the McKee/index cards method of writing? For fun. Joel: Maybe just as an experiment. Ethan: See what happens. Joel: It’d probably take us forever. We’d be sat there years later, filling out index cards.

The Coens

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My teacher, Doug Unger, told us once that if a young writer could learn to distinguish between the things she thinks she should write and the things she should actually write, she could save about twenty-five years.

George Saunders

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There are days when I would like to draw something very philosophical and meaningful, something to touch the hearts of everyone, and find it absolutely impossible. One solution I use at these times is simply to get back to basics. Cartooning is, after all, drawing funny pictures, something a cartoonist should never forget.

Charles Schulz

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Dylan Williams: Do you script your stuff out? Chris Ware: No. DW: You just do it stream of consciousness? CW: Yes. DW: Do you lay it out? CW: No. DW: You just do it right on the pages? CW: Yes. There's nothing to wow about because I think it's much easier that way. I don't see how anyone could sit down and try and think ahead of themselves. I would create the most boring stuff if I sat down and scripted things because the sort of associations that occur while you're drawing and the ideas that you get are the real ideas.

Chris Ware (in Chris Ware: Conversations, pg 28)

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My normal idea on stories is to try to know as little as possible at every step, because then you're open to the actual energy that's coming off the page.

George Saunders

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I may not have gone where I wanted to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

Douglas Adams

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I try to go in and say to the book very humbly, you tell me, you tell me what you want me to do, and that works out better for me, because my preplanning brain is very very pedestrian and it makes boring shit.

George Saunders

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I experimented a lot. Sometimes I worked with a lens that I had when I might have preferred another lens. I think Picasso once said that he wanted to use green in a painting but since he didn’t have it he used red. Perfection is not something I admire. A touch of confusion is a desirable ingredient.

Saul Leiter

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Often the personalities in my scripts don’t want the same thing I want. If I try to force them to do what I want them to do, it will always be an artistic catastrophe.

Ingmar Bergman

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Photography doesn't just force me to leave the house, it forces me to leave my head (briefly).

Alec Soth

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We are always on the outside when it comes to the other. Proust, when he speaks of kissing his grandmother, says, “But I was only kissing the exterior!” That really struck me. It’s this exteriority that is under examination in my films.

Chantal Akerman

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I did things that looked good. Like those early music videos, people saw them and said, “I want a guy that can give me this look.” I started working on flms and doing projects and just living the life of working on commercials, music videos and features here and there. But I still had blinders on. It was all about making things look good and what stylistic lighting could I do. That was my big picture at the time. Now, I don’t think that’s the right way to approach work.

Harris Savides