Nicholas Stoller Quotes

A lyric has to mean something to me, something that has happened to me.

It's the only way I really know how to tell the story is to be able to kind of live through the characters. So when I find something that resonates with me, it's usually because it cuts to something very real inside of me; something that I've gone through or experienced.

You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'

I always like to write where I'm at in real life into whatever I'm working on.

I think that even though some of the things on 'Humans of New York' are kind of very personal and very revealing, I think the discomfort with sharing that tends to be overwritten by the appreciation of being able to distill the experience of your life into a story and share it with other people.

There are elements of myself in every character I do, just because you take from your real life experiences and sprinkle those into your character.

I think it's easier for me to write from experience.

As an actor, you go in your own personal life and pull from your personal life, so that's what I do.

For me, it is important to pick up characters which I can relate to. Or I recall an incident in my life or tap into my innermost emotions and try to bring that reality on to the screen.

I'd love to do a love story. I've never done a true love story, which would be awesome. But then again, I don't think I've had a true love story, even in my own life. Maybe that's something I want to explore in my own life first.

I try to think about me, as an audience member, and it [inspiration for movies] comes from there.

I guess all my films are about resolving conflicts - and they're all love stories. If they weren't, I couldn't make them.

Personal narrative is one of the few things where people don't get caught up in fighting over esoteric rhetoric.

You are always drawing from your personal life and using your imagination to fill in the blanks.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

I'm a firm believer in putting your experiences in your writing, of bleeding into the page.

Directing is all tied up with childhood loneliness. It's such an odd thing to end up doing.

Cinema is empathy machinery, and we multiply our life experience through cinema. When it is good cinema, it almost counts as a personal experience.

My inspiration for songs is just everyday life. I just write down words about things that have happened to me, people I've met.

I'm inspired by my surroundings. That's why I create dresses or videos around simple everyday things! I also love playing with nostalgic things from my childhood like cartoons. I like my art to trigger some sort of memory from my viewers, something they can relate to.

I think that's the only way I know how to write songs, is to think about my life, and also to think about the words at the same time.

When it comes to the lyrics, I write about my own perception of things and use characters for that.

My music has been inspired by true events in my life.

Most writers write from their own experiences. That is where the honesty and intensity of emotions come from.

You write an autobiography because you want to tell people how you felt about a certain matter at that time.