I so desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away. That's why I tend to work with the same people; I really befriend them.
People forget that when you're 16, you're probably more serious than you'll ever be again. You think seriously about the big questions.
I used to judge the quality of music by whether I could make a 90-minute cassette and not repeat any artists.
Fantastic! Right in the middle of that long stretch between Christmas and Spring Break, your coats are getting dirty, everything's dark, dingy - what a great time for a movie!
It's like being at the kids' table at Thanksgiving - you can put your elbows on it, you don't have to talk politics... no matter how old I get, there's always a part of me that's sitting there.
I happen to go for the simplest, most ordinary things. The extraordinary doesn't interest me. I'm not interested in psychotics. I'm interested in the person you don't expect to have a story. I like Everyman.
I like young actors because they're so unspoiled, not like some of those actors who are about half an hour into their fifteen minutes of fame by the time they get to me.
I so desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away.
I'm a former hippie, so clothes are important to me - your clothes defined you in that period. I guess clothes still defines people. But, I change a lot. I'm in my Brooks Brothers period now.
At the time I came along, Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!
I don't think of kids as a lower form of the human species.
My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the baby boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us.
I usually listen to surf music, not much instrumental music, and when I was younger I listened to jazz.
I don't consider myself qualified to do a movie about international intrigue - I seldom leave the country.
My heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso, because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on.
The best sounds a kid will get is in a movie theater, with huge speakers, turned up loud. I always mix my music really loud. I don't care if you don't hear all the dialogue. The audience are not idiots.
When I did 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', I had the idea on Monday and the following Tuesday it was in budget at Paramount. I couldn't walk.
My early prose style - this is so embarrassing - was sort of a suburban, Presbyterian knockoff of Woody Allen.
I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, 'cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!
I don't think I'm making any great statements, and I certainly don't think I'm making art.
