James L. Brooks Quotes

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James L. Brooks

Profession : Producer

Birth : May 9, 1940

I was at CBS News on a fluke. I replaced somebody who was on vacation. I worked as a copy boy, then became a news writer.

James L. Brooks

Making an authentic film about anything is difficult.

James L. Brooks

The remarkable thing about 9/11 was that journalism pretty much put down its badges. People didn't worry about reacting as human beings. People who weren't reporters reported. David Letterman was sort of a brilliant reporter for a second - but it was a way nobody had ever covered a story. They just presented what was inside themselves.

James L. Brooks

When I wrote a gay character, I spent six months asking questions I've never asked a gay friend, the questions you don't ask just because you don't have the right to do it.

James L. Brooks

I'm a journalism junkie.

James L. Brooks

'Fargo,' man, with so many actors playing so many great characters, and then they do another season, and it changes all over again? It's wild.

James L. Brooks

If you write about a process you're about to go through, market research, and you go through it, and it doesn't echo what you've written about, you've failed.

James L. Brooks

I had no road map for fatherhood; I had no personal history to draw from.

James L. Brooks

I could see no position to say, 'I'm going to make a living as a writer.' But I went to classes for it; I read every play in 'Theater' magazine. I saw the second acts of everything on Broadway - I had a job as a CBS usher in New York City, and on my way home every night, I'd see what shows I could get into.

James L. Brooks

In television writing, even if you're running the writers room, it's a writers room.

James L. Brooks

We can go years without making a picture, and that's fine.

James L. Brooks

The fact is that television, even before the movies, offered the chance to control our work and to get to do it again when we did something right. So television has always been better to writers than any other medium for a long time.

James L. Brooks

In my mind, if you write a comedy where human beings experience pain, you're just being realistic.

James L. Brooks

Watching people see your picture for the first time is such a public agony.

James L. Brooks

When it comes to being confused about what to do about life, that's been me and will always be me.

James L. Brooks

With music, you can put sophisticated thoughts in a child's head - it gives you a whole new avenue to express ideas.

James L. Brooks

It's craziness to see yourself as damaged goods, so I was the goofy kid who'd stop a strange adult and say, 'Do you know how to get to Palm Avenue?' They'd say no, and I'd say, 'You go two blocks and turn right. You can't miss it.'

James L. Brooks