Quotes by Alexander Payne

I get asked, How can you have such failures in your films? Well, what else is life about? Theres some sense of constant failure in something. Humor gives you a distance from it.

I dont think so much about verbal comedy. I always think about visual comedy. I was raised watching silents, and Im always thinking about how to make cinema, not good talking - although I want good talking. Im much more interested in framing, composition, and orchestration of bodies in space, and so forth.

Anytime you cast a movie and you need someone famous in the lead part, youre a prisoner of whoever happens to be famous in the six-month window in which youre trying to get a film financed.

You just never know when youre living in a golden age.

Marketing has supplanted story as the primary force behind the worthiness of making a film, and thats a very sad thing. Its film only as a function of consumerism rather than as an important component of our culture, and thats everywhere around the world.