At the time I came along, Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!
My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the baby boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us.
I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, 'cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!
My early prose style - this is so embarrassing - was sort of a suburban, Presbyterian knockoff of Woody Allen.
It's like being at the kids' table at Thanksgiving - you can put your elbows on it, you don't have to talk politics... no matter how old I get, there's always a part of me that's sitting there.
I don't want to be too cool. You get so caught up with whether you're doing it right.
If I'm on a roll, and I finish a script at 3:00, I'll start another at 3:02.
My heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso, because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on.
When I approach a band, I want to respect them and be respectful of their music. I'm not gonna say, 'Look, you guys are real hot, so we'll stick you in the movie, and we'll get it in all these stores and all these stations.' That isn't right.
I don't think of kids as a lower form of the human species.
I happen to go for the simplest, most ordinary things. The extraordinary doesn't interest me. I'm not interested in psychotics. I'm interested in the person you don't expect to have a story. I like Everyman.
The best sounds a kid will get is in a movie theater, with huge speakers, turned up loud. I always mix my music really loud. I don't care if you don't hear all the dialogue. The audience are not idiots.
I find that screen kissing wears very thin very quickly.
Advertising was fairly simple work, and I really just wanted a job where I could sit and write every day and not get fired for it like I had at other jobs, but it was fun.
A nerd will be a nerd all his life.
When I did 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', I had the idea on Monday and the following Tuesday it was in budget at Paramount. I couldn't walk.
A geek is a guy who has everything going for him but he's just too young. He's got the software but he doesn't have the hardware yet.
I so desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away.
I'm a former hippie, so clothes are important to me - your clothes defined you in that period. I guess clothes still defines people. But, I change a lot. I'm in my Brooks Brothers period now.
I so desperately hate to end these movies that the first thing I do when I'm done is write another one. Then I don't feel sad about having to leave and everybody going away. That's why I tend to work with the same people; I really befriend them.
