Nicole Holofcener quotes:

I'm being photographed, worrying about my hair - and yet here I am, I've directed a feature film, why do I care about the way I look? Who cares? Does Tim Burton care? Does Joel Coen?

If a woman gets insomnia, you never know where you're going to find her furniture the next morning. It's primal. We have so little we can control, but we can perfect the way our room looks.

I'm somebody's ex-wife, and I did things that drove him nuts. And now I'm somebody's girlfriend, for many years, and I've got different things that drive him nuts.

I definitely feel like a native New Yorker. My personality was formed there.

If you keep the situations real, the characters' behavior will be real and honest, too. If they're suddenly robbing a bank and exchanging snappy dialogue, well, I wouldn't even know how to write that.

I think that sometimes, romantic comedies have to be really broad, and that the plot of people falling in and out of love or whatever is not enough. 'Enough Said' had that stuff, but I wanted it to be fun and funny while also grounded in reality.

I rarely need career advice because I don't have a career. No, that's not true. I can't really go far away while my kids are living with me.

Catherine Keener really gets me. She and I have such a shorthand together.

Filming is a funny combination of having a good time and not being able to wait until it's over.

I always had good friends, but I did not feel like a cool girl, ever.

When I hear that a project takes place out of town, the material better be terrific, and it has to come at the right time. My kids are getting older, so it's getting easier, but being a mother - it's a difficult thing to juggle.

I'm not crazy about having my picture taken. I'd rather talk my head off.

I think that sometimes, romantic comedies have to be really broad, and that the plot of people falling in and out of love or whatever is not enough. Enough Said had that stuff, but I wanted it to be fun and funny while also grounded in reality.

I'm sure it's more difficult for women to make movies, especially because, in general, the kind of movies women want to make aren't necessarily going to be blockbusters. But you know, there are so few women in so many positions of power.

I'm still shooting on low budgets, though none of my movies has lost money, and I rarely get sent anything that stars a guy or is a thriller or is seriously dramatic. And I would love the opportunity to do those things.

The stories that I want to tell are completely, well, somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems.

Marriages are so complicated that no one person is the culprit. But, I am really interested in class without really realizing that I am. It's more the manifestations of different classes that interest me.

Hollywood is lacking realness in their female characters. I don't think I'm the only one who thinks that and wants to change it.

I went to NYU for a year and a half, and I graduated from there and then years later went to Columbia for graduate school.

I think I'm a good writer. I think I have my own voice, which is unique to everyone - everyone has their own voice; if they would just write from a vulnerable embarrassing place, it's going to be universal, and it's going to be entertaining. Because everyone is the same, and everyone is unique.

The fact that I get to write and direct my own personal story is an amazing thing.

I'm willing to give up a little control but not a lot. So I say I want the money, but when push comes to shove, I'm not sure I'll be able to compromise in order to make the big studio movie. Maybe something in between would be okay, like a low-budget studio film.

Hollywood always likes to create a star.

What's the trick to writing a great female character? Make her human.

When I was going away to school, I had a friend who took a liking to my family just a little too much. We couldn't get her out of the house. It took me saying to my parents, 'I don't want her here. I'm feeling replaced.'

But then male directors also have a hard time getting their movies made... not as hard as women but it's a tough time for any movie this size. And that particular movie [The Hurt Locker] was so specific. It couldn't hurt, of course, and I'm really glad for her, but I don't know how much it will change things, if at all. The film industry is still so sexist.

I guess I always knew going into the movie that casting that part would be difficult. Oliver just felt likeable. I felt it would be hard to dislike this man. I don't know why, but I'm sure other directors have felt the same when casting him. Oliver is goofy yet formidable, smart but likeable... I didn't want the character of Alex to be nasty or demonised. I wanted him to be struggling with his actions.

I have a boundary problem... I need to know when to give and when to back up. I'll help someone across the street and then into their homes and they'll start telling me all their problems... and it turns out they're insane and want to kill me. I've got to know when to stop!

I hear people talk in my head and I write it down. I choose where they live and how they dress to be real. That person wouldn't wear that. That person wouldn't say that. She can't afford to live like that. All that bullshit that so many movies have in them. I don't want to see that.

I never get tired of looking at her [Catherine Keener] and it always surprises me, despite how many hours of film I've shot on that face. She's fantastic. She does comedy and tragedy so equally well. She wears her feeling so on the surface for both. I try to stop myself from casting her but I just keep coming back to her. She's just so fantastic to work with.

I think having a good life prompts it... anybody who has a good life and looks around them sees the enormous disparity that exists in the world between those people who do and those that don't. I can't say we walk about our guilt a lot, though. If we do, it probably comes out in the form of self-loathing jokes. But it's a tough thing to wrap your head around... the have's and have not's in the world.

I think I'm a good writer. I think I have my own voice, which is unique to everyone, everyone has their own voice; if they would just write from a vulnerable embarrassing place, it's going to be universal and it's going to be entertaining. Because everyone is the same and everyone is unique.

I thought I could make a sarcastic joke about it. But it's based on my own struggle with how much to give, how much it's really helping or not, and how foolish or not I feel. Giving sometimes backfires...

I thought of the scene while writing scenes with Rebecca [Hall] and wrote it like an opening montage of showing where someone works. If you see a film about a car mechanic, you'd show the place they work and what they do. So, that's what I set out to do with Rebecca's character. I thought it probably wouldn't even make it into film but I ended up liking it.

I wrote lots of scripts that never got made and they were terrible. I thought they were good at the time. You can't write two scripts and expect your career to take off. Keep writing. Be you. Be original. A lot of people go for a genre, which is fine if you can do that really well, but we all have such layered histories. We all come from a unique background. Write about your past, write about you. Or make stuff up, but make it about something that really matters.

I'd rather go for Scorsese and De Niro. I just think he was so much better.

If anything, I learned most from being a huge fan of his and watching movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan over and over again - that influenced the kind of movies that I wanted to make more than anything else.

If I had cast someone else who didn't have that kind of timing, it would have been leaden and one note. But Ann [Morgan Guilbert] made her really human and really funny without being caricatured or over the top. She feels like a real person.

It's a struggle. It's really, really hard. I'm already nervous for my next one. You have to put more and more movie stars in movies these days. And of course, I would like to have more than $3million to make it. But, again, if that's what I was offered I wouldn't turn it down. I guess studios know that. But I'm one of the lucky ones, I guess.

My grandma has said many of the things her character says. But she was much nicer! I made her meaner for dramatic purposes.

People say to me all the time that I threw some money into some guy's coffee cup [by accident, thinking they were poor]. People do make the same sort of mistake. I've made attempts to volunteer that have been calamitous!

The casting director on the movie made me aware of her. She told me what to watch Starter For Ten, which I did and thought she was great in. She was just so charming and beautiful. But I felt she could probably look plain if we tried. And when I subsequently met with her, I was so charmed by her vulnerability and sweetness. Those were two qualities that were the most important for that character.

The stories that I want to tell are completely, well somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems.

Well, I tried being in front of the camera as a student and that was terrifying. But the press stuff about me growing up on his [film] sets has been exaggerated. I was an extra as a kid and I was also a PA [production assistant] on one of his movies, so I was lucky to get production experience. But I was nowhere near him.

Yeah, people seem to really relate to it and feel moved by it. It's been the most positively received of all my movies so far. I don't know why. I like it just as much as I like my others, but people think this one is the best or the most interesting. I'll take it, though. I wouldn't want them to be saying my films are getting worse.

Filming is a funny combination of having a good time and not being able to wait until its over.

That said, it was pretty awkward and a weird thing to shoot. Some women had a sense of humour about it and we'd laugh, but some were very serious and suspicious... like I might be doing something bad, or maybe they were just uncomfortable.