"There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America. Only law ensures that we never fall into that abyss—the abyss from which there is no return."

"Like a black hole, NSA pulls in every signal that comes near, but no electron is ever allowed to escape."

"“If everyone took personal responsibility for their animals, we wouldn’t have a lot of the animal problems that we do."

"“Kindness and consideration of somebody besides yourself keeps you feeling young.”"

"“There’s no formula. Keep busy with your work and your life. You can’t become a professional mourner. It doesn’t help you or others. Replay the good times. Be grateful for the years you had.”"

"“Well, I mean, if a joke or humor is bawdy, it's got to be funny enough to warrant it. You can't just have it bawdy or dirty just for the sake of being that — it's got to be funny.”"

"Never apologize for being funny because you'll be sorry when you stop getting laughs."

"“Accentuate the positive, not the negative. It sounds so trite, but a lot of people will pick out something to complain about, rather than say, ‘Hey, that was great!’ It’s not hard to find great stuff if you look.”"

"“I have no regrets at all. None. I consider myself to be the luckiest old broad on two feet.”"

"Butterflies are like woman – we may look pretty and delicate, but baby, we can fly through a hurricane."

"“Keep the other person’s well being in mind when you feel an attack of soul-purging truth coming on.”"

"Doing drama is, in a sense, easier. In doing comedy, if you don't get that laugh, there's something wrong."

"Friendship takes time and energy if it’s going to work. You can luck into something great, but it doesn’t last if you don’t give it proper appreciation. Friendship can be so comfortable, but nurture it — don’t take it for granted."

"“If one has no sense of humor, one is in trouble.”"

"Get at least eight hours of beauty sleep, nine if you’re ugly,"

"“Laughter keeps everyone feeling wonderful.”"

"You don’t just luck into integrity. You work at it."

"Animals don’t lie. Animals don’t criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do."

"You can always tell about somebody by the way they put their hands on an animal,"

"“Everybody needs a passion. That’s what keeps life interesting. If you live without passion, you can go through life without leaving any footprints.”"

"I'm not looking forward to death; it's important to live while we are here. But those who have died, my mother said, now they know the secret. And someday we all will."

"“It's your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don't take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humour in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.”"

"You don't luck into integrity. You work at it."

"There's no formula. Keep busy with your work and your life. Keep the person in your heart all the time. Replay the good times. Be grateful for the years you had."

"I’m trying to take a beat to digest the Rittenhouse verdict. My son just asked me how it’s possible that he didn’t get charged for anything. How is that possible? I don’t have an answer for him."

"Comedy is a lot harder to do if you don’t go to the mean place. The cheapest laugh you can get is an insult or snarky comment, so if you take that off the table you have to write smarter."

"Great American filmmaker not nearly revered enough, I think she should be talked about alongside John Cassavetes as people who really moved the needle for American Indie Cinema, like after World War II and before Sundance."

"Hollywood, of course, expected women to be collaborative, but had no intention of rewarding them for it. So she stayed independent. (Hollywood's ignorance of Joan Micklin Silver's talents and ambition)"

"We were so young and had never produced anything, and Joan was infinitely patient and remarkably assured on the set. We learned so much about movies from her. And she really knew how to talk to actors. John [Heard] could be tricky — he was moody and had a tough reputation. But he never gave her a moment of trouble. (memories of the production of Chilly Scenes of Winter)"

"The pathbreaking movie director Joan Micklin Silver got to have a career that almost no woman was allowed to have, and did not get to have the career that she deserved. Such is the paradox of the pioneer: You get to go where very few have gone before, but when you get there, there’s nobody to pull you up or push you ahead. You make your own way, and withstand the indifference, the hostility, the condescension, and the people who treat you as a curiosity or a slightly troubling anomaly."

"Abstract notions of feminism never interested Joan; specific women and their stories did. Yet without setting out to do so, Joan Silver influenced generations of women to come. She was a trail-blazer, a risk-taker, a champion of other women directors. And always as quietly confident as she was the day I met her some fifty years ago."

"I don’t think too many people had what I had, a husband who believed in me and who wanted to help me. (discussing the support and encouragement she received at the start of her film career)"

"My own experience with my films has been that the more I’m left alone, the better I do. It isn’t that I think I’m smarter than anyone, or anything like that. It’s just that whatever my instincts are, it’s better for me to be able to put those into play in my own work."

"So many directors that I admire do things in two takes, like Lumet, and then there are directors like Arthur Penn, who did 40 takes. Whatever works for you, but I like to get it, and once I’ve got it move on. I don’t keep doing it to see if anything else will come. I haven’t ever had where I’ve had so much time or money where I would have had the time to do 40 takes. (as an answer to if she has a preferance to do a minimum number of takes)"

"I really love being the person who in the end gets to make the decisions and have it become the way you want it to be and that urge is an overpowering urge that I have that makes me want to make films."

"I came of age for film, at a time when the sexism was pretty strong. And although I could get work as a Writer, I couldn’t get work as a Director at all. And I had the experience of watching young men who had made shorts as I had, prize winning shorts, as I had, moving on to directing films and I couldn’t do it. And, and my husband, Ray [Ray Silver], was… became angry, and he said, “You know, maybe you can do it, maybe you can’t, but everybody should have a chance to try for the brass ring.”"

"Joan Micklin Silver was one of the most courageous artists I ever knew. She knew she could prevail at a time when women were not being taken seriously as film directors. We have all been deprived of seeing so many many other great movies that Joan was ready and prepared to give us."

"It's a human truth that romantic fantasies are very hard to let go of and while it would be very nice to say Izzy, observing the difference between the two men realize that immediately that Sam was the better choice. I mean maybe you know maybe you work more rationally than than Izzy I don't know. But I mean the thing is that that you don't always do what's good for you, you know you don't always do what's right for you and sometimes you have to grow past it or go through something in order to reject it. (discussing the lead character's decision making in the film Crossing Delancey)"

"It’s always good to be recognized for hard work you’ve done in the years past. While you’re doing it, you don’t think of it so much. You’re just working. It’s a wonderful thing for someone to acknowledge it."

"My fascination is with relationships at their most microcosmic. The more epic, the more uninteresting the film-making becomes. It becomes about getting the perfect crane shot."

"I want my movies to feel like you’re paratrooping into somebody’s life."

"The genesis of the vast majority of my films is an actor as a muse that I want to work with. Humpday was Mark Duplass, Outside In was his brother, Jay Duplass, this movie was Marc Maron, who I’ve been really wanting to make a movie with for three and a half years. Then there’s other things, like a territory I want to explore or an element I want to return to, like improvisation, which I haven’t done since Your Sister’s Sister."

"As a filmmaker, I really am most interested in humans and their deep desire to connect to each other. How do they get through their own lives? Where have I come and where am I now? And where do I want to go from here? It’s all of those humanistic questions."

"Good drama (and comedy) often comes from the simple act of placing characters in a situation that is not usual nor comfortable for them."

"I realized that the actors were the last hired and the first fired. There are no facts here in movies and television really, it's all opinions forcibly argued and if you can express your opinion articulately and with force and belief, you can win this, you can do this, and I just loved it."

"I wanted to be an actor. I never wanted to grow up. I never wanted to. I wanted to fly."

"The fact that you have representation on TV means that you can have an understanding of someone who doesn’t necessarily look like you and that understanding can bring acceptance and empathy. And so that’s why it’s important to have a positive but fully fleshed out portrayals of Asian Americans in the media."

"I think there are pluses and minuses to the emergence of Asian cinema in America. It's about time that a lot of these films got recognized because there are very talented people behind them - the directors, actors, writers. I don't think it is a coincidence that a lot of stories from Asia are being remade by American studios. They are really interesting stories and deserve to be shown here."

"There is as much wisdom in listening as there is in speaking - and that goes for all relationships, not just romantic ones."

"It's one thing to talk about lack of diversity and lack of representation. But that doesn't matter if you're not good at what you're supposed to be doing."