Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people. "
Mike Mills
Mind
Writing
Film
Related Quotes:
" My dad's gay experiences really had a very positive influence on me and my straight relationships - how to better accept all the weirdness and ambiguity and ups and downs and paradoxes. I knew from the beginning I was writing about love. "
Mike Mills
Love
Writing
Positive
" There's great sadness and life doesn't work out like you would want, on a lot of levels, but there's no need to feel all alone. This happens to everybody, so there's no self-pity. This is the ride that humans are on, and all of it is essential for our natural part of it. "
Mike Mills
Ride
Life
Great
" I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people. "
Mike Mills
Think
Energy
You
" One good and bad thing about New York is there's so much exciting stuff and so many people doing something interesting. I actually find in New York that you become more careerist and more focused on what's the newest, hippest thing. "
Mike Mills
People
You
New York
" There's some movies I watch, they're kind of like my anti-anxiety pill, my anti-depressant pill. I watch them at least once or twice a month probably. And I never stop learning from them as a filmmaker. "
Mike Mills
Movies
Watch
Stop
" If you ask me, the place that a story happens is as equal character. It's almost like an ecological viewpoint: These people are living in this piece of land, and in this piece of land in this time this is possible. For me, I almost think location first. It's time first - what year is it - then where are we, and then who is in it. "
Mike Mills
Character
People
Time
" The weird thing about grief, for me at least, was when each of my parents died, for a year or two afterwards I was pretty wildly brave - just willing to take life on. "
Mike Mills
Parents
Weird
Me
" My graffiti really comes more from a May '68, sort of Situationist vibe than the hip-hop world. I think a real graffiti artist would find me a poser. "
Mike Mills
Artist
Find
Hip-Hop
" It's a very sweet and often problematic situation where people feel like they know me and they're concerned for me. It creates these strange little intimate moments. "
Mike Mills
Know
Feel
Sweet
" Humans are vulnerable, messy little animals and that's normal. And all I want to do is make a space for that in my films. "
Mike Mills
Messy
Animals
Normal
" There is a drunkenness to grief, which is good. "
Mike Mills
Which
Drunkenness
Good
" L.A. is so isolated and unhip in a way; it gives you room to figure out who you are and explore more personal stuff. "
Mike Mills
Way
You
Personal
" It's funny now how much we look at - whatever you want to call it: art, design, culture stuff, film - online, and how in the online world, you're instantly global. "
Mike Mills
World
Design
Funny
" My experience, with both my parents, is that grief has a lot of down, sad things, but I was also really emotionally raw, in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely, my relationships were hotter, and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules. "
Mike Mills
Parents
Grief
Flowers
" Everyone talks to their dog, and then in your mind the dog talks back. A talking dog can provide the words that a stunted protagonist finds difficult to muster. "
Mike Mills
Words
Dog
Back
" I guess I watch movies to make myself happier a lot. "
Mike Mills
Myself
Movies
Happier
" I am intrigued by inanimate objects. They're a piece of history, someone's statement and ideas of life. "
Mike Mills
Life
Someone
I Am
" When a film works, the director had a lot to do with that, but the director also didn't have a lot to do with that. There are so many moving parts. It's really about being open to how the river is flowing and trying to get on the river. "
Mike Mills
River
Trying
Moving
" Life doesn't just happen; it's constructed through the history of power. And that's something I am interested in and so is the art world: a world that's trying to engage socially, with a leftist slant, to work out how we got here. "
Mike Mills
Life
I Am
Art
" I'm not a craftsman of graphics or art or film. I'm more of an idea generator and manufacturer. "
Mike Mills
Film
Art
More
" I would hate to think I'm promoting sadness as an aesthetic. But I grew up in not just a family but a town and a culture where sadness is something you're taught to feel shame about. You end up chronically desiring what can be a very sentimental idea of love and connection. A lot of my work has been about trying to make a space for sadness. "
Mike Mills
Hate
Culture
Family
" Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich. "
Mike Mills
Together
Grief
Memories
" The oldest sibling always knows things that the younger ones don't. "
Mike Mills
Sibling
Oldest
Always
" Over and over again, I'm trying to express or communicate these big and small struggles to the world, and really to myself. "
Mike Mills
Small
Trying
World