I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, 'cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!

I'm a former hippie, so clothes are important to me - your clothes defined you in that period. I guess clothes still defines people. But, I change a lot. I'm in my Brooks Brothers period now.

Fantastic! Right in the middle of that long stretch between Christmas and Spring Break, your coats are getting dirty, everything's dark, dingy - what a great time for a movie!

I was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw 'Doctor Zhivago' every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater.

I so desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away.

I find that screen kissing wears very thin very quickly.

At the time I came along, Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!

When I go to a concert, I can't believe that people pay lots of money to see a band that they obviously like and then they dance the whole time.

I don't consider myself qualified to do a movie about international intrigue - I seldom leave the country.

I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, 'cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!

Why watch someone kissing when people really close their eyes when they kiss?

It's been about ten years since I've worked with actors who knew their lines!

It's like being at the kids' table at Thanksgiving - you can put your elbows on it, you don't have to talk politics... no matter how old I get, there's always a part of me that's sitting there.

My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the baby boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us.

Advertising was fairly simple work, and I really just wanted a job where I could sit and write every day and not get fired for it like I had at other jobs, but it was fun.

My heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso, because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on.

I like young actors because they're so unspoiled, not like some of those actors who are about half an hour into their fifteen minutes of fame by the time they get to me.

I don't think of kids as a lower form of the human species.

I don't want to be too cool. You get so caught up with whether you're doing it right.

I happen to go for the simplest, most ordinary things. The extraordinary doesn't interest me. I'm not interested in psychotics. I'm interested in the person you don't expect to have a story. I like Everyman.

I so desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away. That's why I tend to work with the same people; I really befriend them.

I stumbled into this business, I didn't train for it. I yelled 'Action!' on my first two movies before the camera was turned on.

I'm from Chicago, I live in Chicago and I wanted very much for the music in Chicago to succeed.

People forget that when you're 16, you're probably more serious than you'll ever be again. You think seriously about the big questions.

The best sounds a kid will get is in a movie theater, with huge speakers, turned up loud. I always mix my music really loud. I don't care if you don't hear all the dialogue. The audience are not idiots.

What a director should be doing is making it appear as though there was no script.

When I did 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', I had the idea on Monday and the following Tuesday it was in budget at Paramount. I couldn't walk.

One thing at a time It is important that we focus on the task that is at present in hand.

One thing at a time: It is important that we focus on the task that is at present in hand.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.

My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.

When we started making electronic music I imagined that the reaction we got from the rock musicians must have been similar to the one the beat groups got from people like my dad.