Frank Ocean Quotes

It doesn't really feel like it's got anything to do with me. I mean, I know I wrote it, and all that and invented the characters and made it up, but it's Mike's film, so doing the press and stuff, it feels a little bit inauthentic. I was just one component of it.

I like the anonymity that directors can have about their films.

You become the movie you are making.

I don't even know if I can call myself a director.

Call me the author.

That's the problem today: Who is the creator?

Sure, you always put some of your own experience into a film.

There's something very dreamlike about film, and I will always be very fascinated by that, and I'm always tempted to go in that direction.

Being a writer is not the point. Writing is.

A writer is supposed to have anonymity.

In terms of 'Beyond the Lights' and 'Belle,' they're definitely stories about identity. They're female empowerment stories. So I'm exploring that through my work.

Making an authentic film about anything is difficult.

I want young readers to know that to tell their own story is the most important thing they'll ever do.

Creating is one thing; telling the story is one thing. I see myself more as a storyteller than a story creator.

I prefer to be a director and a narrator rather than a writer.

I feel so disassociated from my writing - whether it's in book form or magazine - that I sometimes have a hard time believing that it's mine.

For me, the only ego that needs serving in putting together a film is the story's, the ego of the story and it's the piece itself that you want to bring out the voice of the piece. You're really serving that and that's the thing that you have a basic understanding of.

I write and film history; I don't make it.

I see myself much more as a writer/director or at least an aspiring writer/director - not necessarily in film.

Novels have become equally important to me as films. I consider myself a storyteller and passionately engaged in both of those disciplines.

One of the things about writing a novel is you can do it any way you want. It's your voice that's important and I see absolutely no reason why a screenplay can't be the same. It makes it a hell of a lot easier when you're the writer and the director.

I probably would have made [films] anywhere. Every city has something they're ashamed of. I would have made films about it and turned it into something positive.

You have to have the essential pleasure of making a movie. It's such a huge factor and adventure for a director because you really are the leader and the captain.

I feel that I am just a storyteller, and whether I am wearing the director hat or the playwright hat, it doesn't matter.

The writer is a definite human phenomenon. He is almost a type - as pugilists are a type. He may be a bad writer - an insipid one or a clumsy one - but there is a bug in him that keeps spinning yarns; and that bulges his brow a bit, narrows his jaws, weakens his eyes and gives him girl children instead of boys. Nobody but a writer can write. People who hang around writers for years - as producers did - who are much smarter and have much better taste, never learn to write.