Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I don't write these stories for the rewards that come back to me. I write them because I have to write them. It's a sickness on some level. It's a compulsion. "

Related Quotes:

" Having written for film and television, I had little interest in turning 'The Good Father' into a Hollywood thriller. I was writing a novel, and novels demand that the writer goes deeper, both emotionally and thematically. "

Noah Hawley

Television

Good

Film

" What's great is that each medium has a unique set of things that it does and does well. Film is a visual medium, and obviously, you can't fit a whole book into two hours unless you're really economical about it. Obviously, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and on some level, it's sort of true. "

" I guess I still have this motto: 'What else can I get away with?' And unpredictability in film - that's the hardest thing there is. "

" I was part of a writers' collective with 21 writers and filmmakers called the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. We had our own office space in this old converted dog and cat hospital, and we had a basketball hoop outside. I'd bring my dog to work every day and write. "

" I drove around New York when we did the upfronts and when we premiered 'Fargo,' and they crocheted a sweater for a double-decker bus and drove it around. "

" I remain a huge 'Game of Thrones' fan. "

" Everyone always says that conflict is drama, and I agree, but I also don't think you need drama everywhere. Or conflict everywhere. "

" I see myself as a first-draft writer, so when I sit down to write something, the first draft is usually pretty close to the end draft. "

" We're used to a story in modern terms as an information delivery device. Certainly on television and even with the studio films, there's really only one note that you get, and that's clarity. And people will sacrifice everything for clarity. They'll sacrifice the joke. They'll sacrifice the moment, or the romance. "

" The great thing about an anthology is that each year is its own 10-hour movie, and the only requirement is that it's the best 10-hour movie that I can make out of the story. "

" The prospect of being a father made me ask myself a question. How do you know what kind of adult your child will turn out to be? And how much can you control that? "

" There's a sense you get from the Coens' work, like 'No Country for Old Men,' where you put these characters in situations, and you just let this painful amount of time take place. Part of the tension is just how long it takes to get out of that scene. "

" I sat down to take a break from writing a book and wrote a spec feature that would end up being the movie 'Lies & Alibis' with Steve Coogan. "

Noah Hawley

Book

Writing

" The best strategy for making people care about what happens is if they empathize with both sides. If you just have a Villain with a capital V, it becomes very two-dimensional. "

" The idea was always going to be that each year is a stand-alone story, which did make it easier on some level. It also requires the network to have the creative imagination to say, 'This is also 'Fargo,' you know what I mean? "

" I'm not that guy who thinks I have all the answers. Writing is a means of communicating, and if enough people say, 'I don't get it,' it's worth looking at. "

" There's a degree to which music bypasses our rational brain and accesses our emotional core in a way that's really visceral and allows you to make a strong impression on people without necessary delivering information. "

" In the TV business, you've got to write fast, and someone will tell you, 'Can you rewrite this episode before... 6 P.M.?' So that's when you rewrite it. You can't wait for the muse to show up. "

" Making a new season for 'Legion' is not something you just switch into. It's not something you do between dropping the kids off in the morning and having dinner at night. That's a retreat into the woods for six weeks with some mushrooms, and trying to come back with the answers. "

" There's the craft of acting, and then there's a quality. There's a quality that someone has. "

" The anthology format is completely normal to me. That's just how TV works in my experience. "

" There have been days where I've had two writers' rooms or three writers' rooms going, and you walk back and forth. And then you sort of throw yourself on the sofa, and you go, 'Just talk at me for, like, 20 minutes,' and my brain will catch up with this particular story. But I find that exciting. "

Noah Hawley

Walk

Story

" 'Fargo' becomes a metaphor for a type of true crime case where truth is stranger than fiction. So, there's no reason that there isn't another 10-hour true crime story that could be told in this region. "

" I think people used to read 'War and Peace,' and now they don't; now they sit around with their tablets and watch 'Downton Abbey' and 'Breaking Bad' or whatever, and they want the things that they watch to be better so that they can feel better about themselves for watching it. "

" When I sold my first book, 'A Conspiracy of Tall Men,' it was part of a two-book deal. It wasn't hugely lucrative, but it was enough money for me to quit the paralegal job I had in San Francisco. "

Noah Hawley

Enough

Job

" One of the things that I've always appreciated about the 'X-Men' style of storytelling versus other Marvel stories is how fluid the line between good and bad and right and wrong is. "

" What success has done is present me with a lot of opportunities, and I haven't necessarily learned to say 'no' as well as I should have. "

Noah Hawley

Opportunities

Success

" Anytime you want to create something different, you have to convince people that it's O.K. 'We'll be O.K. It's going to work out. It's going to be great.' "

" For some reason, I tend to take on the stuff that people are really passionate about. If you make a list of people you don't want to offend, it's Vonnegut readers, comic book fans, and Coen brothers enthusiasts. "

" What makes something tragic is that it could've been averted at multiple points. "