“ANDREW: But do you think theres a line? You know, where you discourage the next Charlie Parker from becoming Charlie Parker?FLETCHER: No. Because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged.”

“FLETCHER: The truth is I dont think people understand what it is I did at Shaffer. I wasnt there to conduct. Any idiot can move his hands and keep people in tempo. No, its about pushing people beyo...”

“When someone is playing drums, they aren't actually moving around a space; they're just moving their arms and limbs. They're stuck behind the drum set. So to film someone playing the drums and make...”

“The go-to reflex all over Hollywood is still likeability. I've always had a problem with it because I think I have a weird barometer in the sense that some of the characters I've cared about the mo...”

“I find L.A. kind of romantic, actually. As a movie junkie, it's a city that was built by the movies. There's something really weird and surreal about it that I find energizing.”

“I like movies that are specific. Movies that home in on a very specific subculture, a specific discipline, a specific world.”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.”

“There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.”

“The moral of the tale is, don't live for the approval of others. The real you is here to find out the secret of life, not to satisfy someone else's opinion.”

“Of course, you could, no doubt, call my going to film school the biggest mistake I ever made.”

“I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want.”

“In feature films the director is God in documentary films God is the director.”