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.
— John Hughes
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.
When I approach a band, I want to respect them and be respectful of their music. I'm not gonna say, 'Look, you guys are real hot, so we'll stick you in the movie, and we'll get it in all these stores and all these stations.' That isn't right.
If I'm on a roll, and I finish a script at 3:00, I'll start another at 3:02.
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.
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.
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.
I'm from Chicago, I live in Chicago and I wanted very much for the music in Chicago to succeed.
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.
Advertising was fairly simple work, and I really just wanted a job where I could sit and write every day and not get fired for it like I had at other jobs, but it was fun.
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 consider myself qualified to do a movie about international intrigue - I seldom leave the country.
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 was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw 'Doctor Zhivago' every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater.
What a director should be doing is making it appear as though there was no script.
Many filmmakers portray teenagers as immoral and ignorant, with pursuits that are pretty base... But I haven't found that to be the case. I listen to kids. I respect them... Some of them are as bright as any of the adults I've met.
To have a song work for the movie, it can't just be written apart and shoved in. It's got to come out of the action. It's got to talk about the characters, not the story: it has to augment that action.
I didn't have this tortured childhood; I liked it.
I used to judge the quality of music by whether I could make a 90-minute cassette and not repeat any artists.
A geek is a guy who has everything going for him but he's just too young. He's got the software but he doesn't have the hardware yet.
The only reason I got into movies was because I had no music talent.
I stumbled into this business, I didn't train for it. I yelled 'Action!' on my first two movies before the camera was turned on.
It's been about ten years since I've worked with actors who knew their lines!
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!
When I go to a concert, I can't believe that people pay lots of money to see a band that they obviously like and then they dance the whole time.
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.
Why watch someone kissing when people really close their eyes when they kiss?
I don't think I'm making any great statements, and I certainly don't think I'm making art.
It's arguable whether a hit song is gonna add to the business a film does. There are plenty of films that didn't do any business and sold a million albums.
I'd rather make music if I had the talent.
I don't want to be too cool. You get so caught up with whether you're doing it right.
My early prose style - this is so embarrassing - was sort of a suburban, Presbyterian knockoff of Woody Allen.
A nerd will be a nerd all his life.
I usually listen to surf music, not much instrumental music, and when I was younger I listened to jazz.
I don't think of kids as a lower form of the human species.
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.
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!
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.
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 find that screen kissing wears very thin very quickly.
