Richard Linklater

I'm not enough of one of those public personalities who feels as though he's been one-dimensionalized. I don't feel that strongly enough.

I played baseball in high school, and in some parallel universe, if I had not gone into filmmaking, I may have been the coach cursing at the kids.

I'm the kid who wanted to grow up and be Bugs Bunny. I was very, very disappointed when I realized I couldn't grow up and be a cartoon character.

As a little kid, you go where your parents drag you. You have no agency, no dominion.

I have an uncomfortable groove, 'cause I have a lot of different kinds of stories to tell.

Every film's different; every story is so different. But I think I've always been attracted to try to take something minimal and to maximize it cinematically. To find out if I can I really go all the way with one idea.

There's a long history of people who spent that $300,000 on their first film and weren't quite ready, and then they never did it again 'cause they were out of synch with where they were, and they would never raise that money again.

For a lot of us, awareness is merely realizing the extent to which we've been lied to all our lives. You start educating yourself. You become motivated; you follow your muse where it takes you. And you see the world in a different way. You start making decisions based on what you feel is right.

I always sensed instinctively from the earliest age that I was being lied to.

Are any of us self-taught? It just means I didn't go to school for it. But you do have teachers. You have mentors.

I really do remember everything. I see people I haven't seen in 20 years, and I can talk with them about what we talked about outside the high school.

I'm interested in people forging their realities.