Josh Radnor Quotes

I went through this very serious Woody Allen phase in college and a little bit after college. I still see his movies.

Well, I stopped drinking. That was actually a big deal. I didn't go through any harrowing rock-bottom experience. I just made a decision to stop drinking.

We don't have a lot of space in our imaginations to allow people to expand what they do.

I'm a little less hungry as an actor than I used to be. When you're a director, you're the conductor of the orchestra, and when you're an actor, you're playing the violin. There's a thrill to each of them, but as the conductor, you get the fuller sound.

I have really good female friends. I've never bought the whole men-and-women-can't-be-friends thing. I think that's sort of nonsense.

We're like a gardener with a hose and our attention is water - we can water flowers or we can water weeds.

Each film is difficult, in its own particular way. There's a unique set of challenges on every movie.

The reflexive allergy to L.A. that a lot of New Yorkers have, I feel like it's kind of nonsense.

When I'm working, it's great. When I'm not working, it's great.

Knowing when to say something and when not to say something is important.

I know not everyone starts out reading high literature. If you read enough you might be drawn to some other things, so maybe those vampire books are what they call 'gateway books.' I just coined that term. I don't know if there's a thing called 'gateway books.

And as a filmmaker, I'm trying to unhook myself from this idea that unless you have a brilliant, long, enormously lucrative theatrical run, that your movie somehow failed. And I don't believe that.

I really like to travel when I write. Something about seeing new things and being in new cultures and environments provokes new thoughts in your head.

A movie can and should have some real dissonance throughout - rage, heartache, tears, conflict, catharsis and all the other elements Aristotle demanded of a good story - but the chord has to be resolved.

It's really hard to be poor in New York - I was really poor when I lived in New York.

I love watching all sorts of different types of movies, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily movies I want to be making. I'm not sitting around saying, "Man, I'd really love to direct a western." That's just not something I'm probably going to do. But, I'm just looking to work on things that both feel professionally exciting and personally relevant.

To write a story about New York that only deals with people in your age and socioeconomic bracket, that feels dishonest to me. So much of New York comes from everyone bumping into each other.

After a brief period in which I had let many a Southern Californian convince me that it was all 'in my mind,' I am once again officially allergic to dogs.

Cynicism is kind of like folding your arms and stepping back and commenting on things, like the old guys in 'The Muppets,' just throwing out comments all the time, whereas there are other people on the ground really trying to affect things and improve their lives and the lives of other people. I think it's noble and I think it's cool.

My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head.

You know, I’m not saying, “Oh, because I play a good guy on TV, I need to suddenly be villainous in a movie.” I look at it more like: does this role has a kind of urgency for me in terms of, “can I not say no to it for whatever reason?”

One of the secrets to life is saying yes to change and allowing things to transition, but I also think you have to mark the time and give thanks for all that it gave you.

I sometimes don't know what I'm writing when I start writing it, on some level.

One thing I'm most proud of, in my movies, is that I think the performances are super-strong, but that's not all me. I think part of it is casting appropriately.

It's hard to explaining exactly what happened, but I felt in that moment that the divine, however we may choose to define such a thing, surely dwells as much in the concrete and taxi cabs as it does in the rivers, lakes, and mountains. Grace, I realized, is neither time nor place dependent. All we need is the right soundtrack.

I actually have a thing about proper nouns. They clang on my ear in a weird way when I hear them dropped into movies.

I like movies that are about real people in real time with real problems.

When I go to movies and I love the movie, it's because it feels like it articulated something about how we're living now, and also gives me some insight into my own life. I feel actually altered after having seen it.

It never made sense to me that someone would achieve any kind of success in show business, only to become a jerk.

And so, however many people watch this thing, that's how many different opinions there will be about it. But I don't feel like it has an agenda in terms of its ideology. It just presents a story like a mirror. It's a mirror more than it is than a distorted mirror.

Even though I occasionally appear on it, I don't watch television.

Film allows me to ask some really big questions with the time to explore them deeply. I love the form.

I tend to read things that are a little more on the nourishing side. But if I don't enjoy something, I'll put it down.

I care about reading, a lot. It's a big part of my life.

I feel comfortable with women. I have two sisters, so I grew up in a female-dominated environment.

It's not our job to play judge and jury, to determine who is worthy of our kindness and who is not. We just need to be kind, unconditionally and without ulterior motive, even - or rather, especially - when we'd prefer not to be.

The purpose of fiction is to combat loneliness.

When I write a film, there's a particular thing I am wrestling with and the question or concern I'm dealing with has to be big enough for me to dedicate a year or two of my life. If the question isn't big enough, or rich enough, I'll lose interest.

I've always been attracted to ensembles. When I started doing plays in high school and in college, I always loved the community aspect of it. I loved these little families that would develop.

I don't love large groups of men. I've always felt like something terrible could happen when there were no women. If there are women around, it feels like there's less of a chance that anyone will get stabbed.

We are so vocal about what we hate.

No matter how dark things may get in a story, I feel it's the responsibility of the storyteller to leave the audience with at least a shred of hope.

I'm not a masochistic reader. If something is just too dense or not enjoyable, even though I'm told it should be good for me, I'll put it down. That said, most of what I read would be considered high-end or good for you, I suppose. But, I also think that reading should be enjoyable.

My whole thing is that I want to explore why you read books, what's the purpose of reading, and maybe that it's not that cool to hate something just because it's popular.

I don’t think evil people or negative people are inherently interesting all the time. People who are good people getting better at being themselves - to me, that’s something that’s really interesting to watch.

I find myself going out less and less. When you're 22 and see older people start to do that, it's depressing, but once you hit 30, you think, 'Wow, I've been working all week - it might be really nice to stay in!

I think the word 'earnest' kind of has a negative connotation on some level. I think one of the things that's happened is that being cynical is somehow conflated with being sophisticated. I think that's problematic, to say the least.

If I’m feeling something, I have a lot of different ways to express it, you know? I can write an article about it. I can write a screenplay about it. I can act in someone’s thing.