I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

I don't like when you necessarily know that this is the end of the movie. I like when a movie ends abruptly. You go through this, and some of the scenes are uncomfortable, and some are funny - and then suddenly it's over.

I've run into more people walking in L.A. than if I drove. Because you stand out so much if you walk. People from my past have stopped their cars and said, 'Hey!' But if I was in a car, they never would've seen me.

Will Ferrell's made a lot of brilliant movies.

I've always felt some kind of connection to people who are kind of over-smart. People who over-think things to the point of some sort of paralysis, and I think that certainly can be me on any given day.

I still carry the residue of the pressure I felt as a child to read and appreciate the right books. Growing up, I never allowed myself to read beach reading. I was always plowing through Ford Madox Ford's 'Good Solider' or something I wasn't equipped to understand.

It's near impossible to make a movie in black and white in the system.

I always viewed life as material for a movie.

I think I've always been drawn to the notion of talk as cinematic.

Dance is a profession with an expiration date for many people.

I know people who are incredibly successful who still dress the way they did when they were 18, just because they still think that's how they look good.

I kind of live like a writer. I get up and I write. I've done that my whole life.

The real achievement of Woody Allen was that he was making movies that felt very personal, and for a whole group of people, it spoke to them. Then he became an archetype, like Groucho Marx or Chaplin.

I really like my first movie a lot, 'Kicking and Screaming.' I think it's a - I'm very pleased and proud of that movie, but it wasn't the - it wasn't 'Citizen Kane' right out of the box, you know? It wasn't 'Sex, Lies and Videotape.'

A lot of black-and-white films generally have a color version that will be used for TV.

I'm sure I've said some pretty bad pick-up lines.

Woody Allen's movies are so much a part of me. I grew up watching them over and over and would read all his comic pieces for the New Yorker. In some ways, his influence is so much there that I can't even locate it any more.

I try to procrastinate, if I can, productively, like I'll work on something else as procrastination. Or I take a walk. Because often I find, if you get out, more things come to you.

I get a lot of responses to my movies. Some people say, 'Oh, I thought it was really funny - I hope that's okay!' And my answer always is 'Yes. It's totally okay.'

I'm interested in music as an extension of character.

Even fairly serious moviegoers can't shake this shadow of the corporate world.

I think all my movies are about transitions to some degree.

'The Squid and the Whale' I shot in 23 days. I would have loved more time for it at the time, but in some ways that kind of kamikaze way of shooting was right for that movie.

Many of the crew members I work with and continue to work with were friends or have become close friends, and so we keep working together. And I like casting friends of mine or people I know in parts I know would be perfect for them. I like to bring things and people that mean something to me in to my work.

With 'Greenberg,' I wanted to make a movie about Los Angeles... my great love for it and also the way that I felt not at home and alienated there.

How you start the movie is critical. And how often you feel that there's no reason for how it's starting.

It's always really special to be at the New York Film Festival, and always a real privilege.

When you're around your family, and you have that history and that shared language, you say things you'd be embarrassed to hear quoted back to you later.

I guess I'm interested in people who are very sophisticated in intellectual ways, while being completely off the mark in emotional ones, with these huge blind spots in terms of their own behavior.

I'm a huge proponent of therapy and analysis, but it's something that, in a nonprofessional way, can be abused.

You can be aware that something is idiosyncratic, and give it to a character, but keep doing it.

As a kid, I thought of myself as a funny person who secretly wanted to be serious, but now I think maybe I'm a serious person who secretly wants to be funny.

There's always some generational-guys-hanging-out movie that is made every few years, I think, and some of them are great.

I do like having books on my shelves. I do value that life.

My dad was a great movie companion. He wouldn't diminish 'The Jerk.' If I liked it, he liked it. He could see it through my eyes.

There was a telemarketing job one summer in high school that I was rejected for. I still walk by the building that I actually had the interview in. It's still in New York, and I always think about that job and why I didn't get it.

We all have these notions of cool that come about at different points in our lives, and it's interesting in how it evolves or doesn't evolve in different people.

I like the way corduroys feel. I like the sort of jean aspect of corduroys, but also the texture of them. They probably remind me of my childhood, too, I think. I wore cords, and my dad had a corduroy jacket.

I thought at the time of my parents' divorce that I was upset by deeper, more profound things and I was just taking it out on the joint custody agreement. But that disruption was bad enough. That was a huge deal for a teenager.

I find a lot of writing happens when you're not actually at the computer. So I carry a notebook.

I've always liked working with friends or, you know, people I have outside relationships with.

Adaptations are fun for me because they connect to the idea of filmmaking I had when I was a kid. I would see a movie and think: 'I'm gonna make that movie.'

I wouldn't say 'Frances Ha' is autobiographical, but it's definitely very personal.

Being funny, in some ways, is about being connected to psychology.

I've had times in my life when I really haven't been able to figure myself out.

When you find yourself on the Internet when you're supposed to be writing, you've already lost. It's even beyond procrastination when you end up on the Internet.

I think I was going through a lot of change at 27, but I didn't know it was happening until it was over.

I love black-and-white movies that are about contemporary subjects.

Wes Anderson's films, 6-year-olds are crazy about them.