Quotessence
Home / Authors / Miranda July
Miranda July

Miranda July Quotes

Film director

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleIfsThinkingWayKnowsWorldKindWritingFeelsPersonsRealTryingWantWantedCharacterLooksMenMightAsksDifferent

Famous Miranda July Quotes

“Most great filmmakers are good at place. Like how people say, like, "The city itself is a character in the movie," you know? I'm so interior. I always forget there's such a thing as an exterior wide shot, where you can see where someone is. As opposed to just: how can we show what this person is thinking, in an abstract way that is felt?”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWayPersonsCharacterShowsFeltForgetCitiesShotsWideFilmmakerAbstractInteriorsExteriorGreat Film
Author:Miranda July
Create image

“People ask, 'Why would you cast yourself in your movie?' And, for me, it's more like an achievement that I am now not playing all the parts, you know? Like I was for so long, in all my performances and a lot of my short movies. So, that's where I'm coming from, not out of a kind of actress-y sense of myself. I mean, I don't really see myself as an actress, but more from performance: this is how you make something. You do it yourself. You're in it and you write it. I think I keep doing it that way, 'cause it's my way. It's what makes me feel like I know how to do it.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWayFeelsWritingKindMeanLongAsksCausesKnow HowAchievementPerformancesCastsActressesMy WayDo It Yourself
Author:Miranda July
Create image

“I made some shorts that I'm not in. I think because I write so many short stories, it's not that hard to come up with characters that are not me. But my way into making movies has been through performing. My very first short film, I played a child and her own mother. So in some ways, to me, my great achievement so far is just that I've gotten all these other people to play the other parts. That's what makes it a real movie.”

PeopleThinkingWritingChildrenRealCharacterFilmMotherAchievementMy WayPerformingShort StoryGreat AchievementShort Films
Author:Miranda July
Create image

“People who would not be using the word gender or thinking about gayness or trans-ness may actually, without even thinking about it, be not their own gender in their inner world. I think that's actually so normal, because female sexuality is sold to all of us. It doesn't just reach the eyes of men. You might not care about the idea of boobs or jugs or whatever, but it could impact your inner sexual life.”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldEyeCareFemaleGenderSexuality
Author:Miranda July
Create image

“Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it's worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.”

PeopleIfsThinkingLooksPersonsLightRememberFacesMorningDoubtFireTroubleSkyStreetsOkayBallsWake UpPraiseEastUnsureLight Within
Book:No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
Create image

“Some may say that such a girl is not ready for a relationship with a man, especially a man in his late sixties. But to that I say: We don't know anything. We don't know how to cure a cold or what dogs are thinking. We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill people out of greed. So who are we to say how to love. I wouldn't force her. I wouldn't have to. She would want me. We would be in love. What do you know. You don't know anything. Call me when you've cured AIDS, give me a ring then and I'll listen.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMenWantGivingMayWarWould BeGirlForceKnow HowDogReadyColdTerribleLateGive MeGreedAidsRingsCuresCall MeDo You KnowWant MeSixtyTerrible ThingsNot ReadyHow To Love
Book:No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
Create image

“Most of life is offline, and I think it always will be; eating and aching and sleeping and loving happen in the body. But it's not impossible to imagine losing my appetite for those things; they aren't always easy, and they take so much time. In twenty years I'd be interviewing air and water and heat just to remember they mattered.”

ThinkingYearsBodyHappensRememberLife IsEasyWaterSleepImagineImpossibleAirEatingLosingTwentiesHeatAppetiteAir And WaterOffline
Book:It Chooses You
Create image

“After I had my son I looked everywhere for a book that might serve as some kind of mirror. I bought so many silly books. Now I see what the problem was: I wanted a book about time-about mortality. I can't think of a writer who is at once so experimentally daring and so rigorously uncompromising as Sarah Manguso. Ongoingness is an incredibly elegant, wise book, and I loved it.”

ThinkingKindI CanBookProblemMightWantedWiseSonMirrorsSillyMy SonMortalityDaringElegantUncompromising
Author:Miranda July
Create image