Maurice Sendak never - I remember he said something that was very striking because it's something I never thought about. I always loved his work, and he said, 'I don't really view myself as a children's book author. I just try and write about childhood as honestly as I can.'
— Spike Jonze
I feel like everything I make is personal to me.
I met Arcade Fire on their first record, 'Funeral.' I loved that record, and it was a record I was listening to while I wrote 'Where the Wild Things Are.' Those songs - especially 'Wake Up' and 'Neighbourhood' - there's a lot of that record that's about childhood.
I have a home phone number, and I like it! It's like a throwback already.
I think the thing that is meaningful is when I can tell that someone's been affected by the movie or by anything I made.
I worked at this bike shop called Rockville BMX, and I started going on this summer tour with this one company. One summer, we ended up in California, and I got to hang out with the guys who made 'Freestylin' - Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman.
I don't know what life was like 1,000 years ago, but I imagine there was the same struggle: people trying to connect with each other.
I just want to be who I am, as I am.
I'm a little slow, so forgive me if I'm inarticulate.
I remember when MySpace came out. It did do something pretty incredible - which was unite people around the world with common interests and common tastes.
'Where The Wild Things Are,' I think I could have written on my own. When I brought Dave Eggers on, I already had 60 pages of notes. I technically could have, but I don't think I was ready to. I needed him to be there and help me.
The strengths and failings of a relationship depend entirely on your ability to talk about your feelings.
There's great food everywhere, and even McDonald's uses nice wood now.
On set, there's a lot of pressure. But it sort of heightens the moments.
Johnny Knoxville went from struggling to pay his rent to being on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' in the course of, like, a month.
I'm very nervous about taking jobs. I always make sure that, if I'm going to work with somebody, that they really understand what it is that I want to do. I'd rather not take the job than be vague about how I'm going to do something and run into trouble later on. It's a hard thing to negotiate.
When I was 20 years old, I had no plans to ever be a filmmaker.
There are a lot of kids in the world. People seem to keep having them.
I don't want to make a movie till I have an idea I have to make. I don't want to make a movie just to make a movie.
I skated and rode bikes on ramps, and my mom was always super supportive. She was one of the only divorced moms in the neighborhood, so all the other parents looked down upon her for letting her kids do that kind of thing.
Any conversation I have with anybody that's real is always revealing and inspiring.
I'm hesitant to make grand statements because I feel like that it's not exactly what I'm writing about.
I want to make films without a single clear message, and films that are as close as possible to what it feels like to be alive. At least to me.
A lot of times, you have an idea, and all the things you are thinking about might fuel it. But that's not where the idea came from.
I respect people that are die-hard film people, but I started on video. I started on Hi8 video and mini-DV, and I made skate videos. So, I love film, and I love the way it looks, but I also love the way crappy video looks, or VHS. I've always been a fan of whatever the look is that's appropriate for what the feeling is.
Our subjectivity is so completely our own.
I love people that willfully defy what you're supposed to be and create their own definition of their selves.
Writing is hard.
I've done the thing where I stop being communicative, and I've been on the other side where the other person isn't communicating, and I become frustrated.
Obviously technology has become such a big presence in our lives and, I definitely know, in my life.
There's a difference between stress and pressure.
You can go on Nike's website and choose exactly what fabrics and colours and shapes you want your sneakers to come in.
As creatives, it's a hard thing to push, to make something you're truly excited about, especially if you've written 100 different concepts and they keep getting shot down.
Me and my friends had BMX magazines and skate magazines, and I was a photographer who made skate videos.
I'd love to do a musical one day - a theatre musical.
I think the way Win Butler writes, I really identify with it. He writes very emotionally and very cinematically, and I just connect with his sensibility.
Whenever I start writing, I try to put together songs that feed the feeling of the movie.
I guess a lot of things I make are relationship movies. Maybe all movies are relationship movies, because they're all about how we relate to each other.
I definitely liked the Muppets. I definitely liked Yoda in 'Empire Strikes Back' and Chewbacca. I don't know if I was a fan of puppets or those, like, specific characters.
We can empathize as deeply as we can empathize.
Some of the best ideas come from sheer discovery, and not by some masterminded, preconceived genius.
I'm not a film-snob.
Is artificial intelligence less than our intelligence?
I like people that define their own values. I am much more interested in somebody who has their own definition of what they value, their own definition of what success is, their own definition of what love is.
I think there is something about... unless you come from a really evolved family that allowed you to talk about your feelings and felt like a safe environment, then you aren't really prepared to do that when you grow up.
After 'Where The Wild Things Are,' which was this big, long five-year project, I spent a year making small things.
You get a buzz when getting texts: 'Oh, someone's thinking about me.'
I loved Fugazi, the D.C. hardcore band, because they always did everything themselves. They had their own label, and the CDs always cost nine dollars, the T-shirts always cost eight dollars, the shows always cost five dollars, no major label.
Everything in L.A. is - it's just an easy place to live in. The houses are nice, the backyards are nice, you got the ocean right there and the mountains behind you; there's an idealised easiness to the way you live and the whole environment.
After 'Where the Wild Things Are,' I guess I felt more confident as a writer.
