Christopher Guest

I spent a lot of time in London when I was growing up and I've always picked up accents without even really meaning to. It used to get me into trouble as a child. ”

It's infrequent that that happens - great performances and magical cinematography and great direction. ”

If you're deluded, you live in a place where there isn't everyone else's reality. ”

If you're showing people where it's smooth sailing, where is the joke? If you go back to any movie, even a conventional movie, with any comedians, they're either not terribly intelligent or they're not doing something well. ”

When I look back on what I've done, I think I'm drawn to obsession, perhaps. ”

When you've been a character in a movie - and this has happened when we've done concerts as Spinal Tap or as The Folksmen - people see you as characters walking out of a movie. And you appear in public, then, to play, it's a very schizophrenic thing. ”

Waiting For Guffman' was different right away from 'Spinal Tap,' because we didn't show the interviewer. That person became invisible immediately. That created a different way of tuning it and ultimately editing it. ”

I talk to people of different ages, and a guy who's 38 who says, 'I could've played Major League Baseball, but I had this knee injury...' Yeah, probably not. It's a big thing with men and sports, where they think they could have touched that thing. ”

When you hear someone talking in a restaurant or overhear someone talking on the street, there are very different patterns of conversation than you would hear in a conventional movie. ”

The minute the money is more, you lose your control, so then there's no point. ”