Top 100 Apatow's Quotes
#1. In the comedies I've been lucky enough to be a part of a world like Judd Apatow's, where I believe comedy comes from real people.
Jonah Hill
#2. I don't know if there's a particular project, but one movie that I was really disappointed I didn't get to work on was Judd Apatow's 'Walk Hard.'
Adam Schlesinger
#3. If I've learned anything - anything - getting older, it's the value of moment-to-moment enjoyment.
Judd Apatow
#4. I had a very specific type of terrible network experience where I was told that people like Seth Rogen and Jason Segel weren't leads, so it truly drove me mad. So to be trusted is all I value.
Judd Apatow
#5. I start thinking about the next movie before it's a success, so I can never have one moment of happiness or peace. I'm instantly thinking about the next one.
Judd Apatow
#6. I think, first of all, I don't think people understand Ice Cube's body of work. Ice Cube is a, and I hate to use the word 'urban' but - when you think of Judd Apatow, and a person who's launched so many careers, Ice Cube has done that for so many comedians, you know?
Kevin Hart
#7. I think a lot of Hollywood is in retreat right now trying to figure out how to make money and make the safest bets.
Judd Apatow
#8. The hard part about getting much attention is that people start dissecting what you do.
Judd Apatow
#9. I feel like Superbad and Freaks And Geeks are somewhat timeless. That's always gratifying, when you feel like 30 years in the future, people will still get it, and it won't seem creaky. It won't come across like The Incredible Mr. Limpet.
Judd Apatow
#10. You have to write a lot of scripts to get any scripts that are worth making.
Judd Apatow
#11. To me, I've never understood why there is any question about are women as funny as men.
Judd Apatow
#12. I just try to be true to myself and write about things I'm passionate about. I think what most people don't like about movies is they can tell that most movies are a product, and they don't mean that much to the people who make them.
Judd Apatow
#13. A lot of bands that are great disappear a little bit faster than they used to. They don't get as much support for the long haul. You have to be pretty tough to hang in there.
Judd Apatow
#14. The only thing worse than a crappy TV show which Paddy Chayevsky couldn't have conceived in his worst nightmare is two megacorps fighting over who thought of the crappy show first.
Judd Apatow
#15. I am always driven by the terror of humiliation.
Judd Apatow
#16. Maybe you just get so attached to the music of your youth that you think it's better than what's coming out now.
Judd Apatow
#17. Well, every movie is an experiment. And the only way you can grow at what you're doing is to take chances. You can't try to stick with what worked last time.
Judd Apatow
#18. If you develop 10 things, and you can get two or three made, that's a very high ration.
Judd Apatow
#20. Deer are like dogs. Except for Bambi, they're pretty personality-less.
Judd Apatow
#21. My way of dealing with the world has always been to make fun of it and observe it but not take part in it. That's how I became a writer. But when you have kids, suddenly you have to be part of things. It leads almost to a breakdown because your whole defense mechanism is now really destructive.
Judd Apatow
#22. I love the Lonely Island. I wish there was more Lonely Island movies.
Judd Apatow
#23. I've seen all the Judd Apatow movies, and I'd love to have a really funny little part in one of them some day.
Miranda Cosgrove
#24. Every day I live by only one rule, be a good guy.
Judd Apatow
#25. In terms of the emotional underpinning, if you've been in relationships, you understand what's happening.
Judd Apatow
#26. The thing that ruined your life makes you good at your work. And then you get rewarded at work, so you don't bother to fix it in your life.
Judd Apatow
#27. Just trying to tell the truth about, you know, the struggle of - being alive is funny, it's just inherently tragic and also hilarious - in a fun way and in a sad way. That seems to connect with people.
Judd Apatow
#28. A lot of times, it's easy to trim the movie 'cause you just start losing things that you thought would be there just for amusement's sake that actually are not funny. My favorite part of the process is seeing it with an audience. I do about eight previews to see how things are working.
Judd Apatow
#29. I don't think there's that many great 90-minute comedies.
Judd Apatow
#30. Television is much more difficult because at every moment the network can force you to change things based on their belief about what would make it popular. You're in a constant debate with a gun at your head, and the gun is cancellation. So it's hard to win the arguments.
Judd Apatow
#31. I was in the recording studio when Pink was recording for a part of the gay rights anthem. It was just amazing to watch her perform. She's just such an incredible singer. She so funny, and so smart, yet she's doing it for this silly, silly song.
Judd Apatow
#32. We are at this weird moment where there's an economic model that supports creativity. People are demanding something new and fresh.
Judd Apatow
#33. It's so difficult to shock America these days.
Judd Apatow
#34. It's funny when people debate about music, because they get so passionate about what they enjoy.
Judd Apatow
#35. That's the greatest thing about comedy. If you've got talent, it's unmistakable. No one misses it and you don't have to wait around for a break. It's very easy to get a break. It's very hard to be good enough.
Judd Apatow
#36. I like when people are very passionate about what they want to write about. Even if it's silly, you can be very passionate about it.
Judd Apatow
#37. No matter how much you love someone, on a bad day, you could say something terrible. All of the little things that you are saving to say, that you're mad about but never express, sometimes come out, all at once. We all have these terrible moments. That's just part of being human.
Judd Apatow
#38. I'm the guy who gets uncomfortable. That's why I was able to write 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' and 'Knocked Up.' I believe in those guys.
Judd Apatow
#39. There's a great rabbinical motto that says you start each day with a note in each pocket. One note says, "The world was created for you today," and the other note says, "I'm a speck of dust in a meaningless universe," and you have to balance both things.
Judd Apatow
#40. There's something honorable about holding out for love and not breaking up for the sake of the baby. I see people get divorced, and there is a part of me that thinks, I wonder how hard they tried?
Judd Apatow
#41. Back in the old days, everyone was shocked if a band had a sponsor for their tour. Now, Bob Dylan can do a commercial for Victoria's Secret and people don't really blink; the Beatles' songs are in all sorts of commercials these days and it doesn't seem to offend anybody. The times are changing.
Judd Apatow
#42. It's funny, now there are so many bands that I can never remember any of their names. Maybe it's because I'm old.
Judd Apatow
#43. I'm always talking to people. It's not that complicated. I just find somebody and say, "Do you have any ideas." If they do, we just start thinking things around.
Judd Apatow
#44. If we really talked about what's wrong with you, you'd need a 7-1/2-hour movie and nobody would know what category to put it in!
Judd Apatow
#45. In the U.S., it's like, you start with a great script, and then on set - not everybody, but definitely in the Apatow group - you go off, and you're improvising on camera. So while you're on camera, you're saying things that no one else has ever heard before during the actual take.
Bill Hader
#46. I don't think because a story has humor in it means it's brief. For some reason, people think anything that's 30 minutes is a comedy, comedies can be longer or shorter, so can dramas.
Judd Apatow
#47. I don't think I'm going to get so mature that I lose touch with the whatever wounded part of myself that feels the need to be funny. I'm already old enough that I realize that's not going to happen.
Judd Apatow
#48. The ones [comedies] that I always liked, whether it's Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, or Fast Times of Ridgemont High, they were all about two hours, or a little bit over two hours. With that extra 15 or 20 minutes, you can get to real character and you're not just stuck in plot.
Judd Apatow
#49. I've come to believe that the simpler the title, the better. Whenever I try to get cute with it, it seems to be a problem but if it's just The 40-Year-Old Virgin, people seem to know what they're in for.
Judd Apatow
#50. I guess Judd (Apatow) is my soul mate because we have a lot of hard times, and it's great at times, too.
Leslie Mann
#51. I love Coldplay. I love Steely Dan - Steely Dan's probably one of my top three bands of all time.
Judd Apatow
#52. I don't really get attached to anything. I'm pretty brutal about cutting stuff. With each successful movie, I've discovered anything that's not connected to the immediate story is going to be cut out of it.
Judd Apatow
#53. If you look at who drives the box office numbers at these films, it's men.
Judd Apatow
#54. If the movie's not communicating, it's not working.
Judd Apatow
#55. I have to go back to vinyl every once in awhile, even if my kids don't want to hear it. I'm much more likely to be listening to Wilco or the Avett Brothers.
Judd Apatow
#56. I need to find people who I respect so I can respect them, and they'll like being respected so they'll respect me, and that's like a marriage.
Judd Apatow
#57. I love magazines and film critics, so I eat it up. I'm not one of those people who says 'I never read anything.' I generally read all of it.
Judd Apatow
#58. There's nothing more fun than debating and defending your taste in music.
Judd Apatow
#59. If anything is leaking, I try to plug the hole.
Judd Apatow
#60. People are disappearing from movies, and normal human behaviour is disappearing from movies ... You are not always fighting a creature in life. That's part of life, it's a pretty big part of life, but it's not all of life.
Judd Apatow
#61. I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works. Judd Apatow is fantastic at it. But as an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written.
Aaron Sorkin
#62. If you watch the arcs of so many comedians, at some point, they just become themselves.
Judd Apatow
#63. All of my jokes were about not being able to meet anybody. I didn't have any insight into anything - even my own insecurities.
Judd Apatow
#64. I still feel like a weird kid who is about to take a punch in the face. So, I think it's permanent.
Judd Apatow
#65. I have to make good things so good comedians want to talk to me.
Judd Apatow
#66. I always see other people as predecessors and admire them.
Judd Apatow
#67. I think the story should always determine the visual approach. There are situations where you want things to feel alive and like life, and there are situations that should have some magic and the separation with the grain.
Judd Apatow
#69. The moment you think of a joke is the best moment.
Judd Apatow
#71. I wanted to see how funny I could be without making the choice that every 10 minutes something big and visual had to happen.
Judd Apatow
#72. There are only so many hilarious actors so when they cross-pollinate, people assume it's always the same actors and directors.
Judd Apatow
#73. One of my fears is that I'm suddenly not going to be funny, but still think I am. That's like my nightmare that I can wake up in a cold sweat from.
Judd Apatow
#74. Sometimes, something seems dead, and then out of the blue, someone just figures out the way to fix a script and it goes.
Judd Apatow
#75. I think it's fun to have people see everything at once, and then I think certain shows are very well-suited to being on every week and being spread out over months.
Judd Apatow
#76. I was a big TV kid.When I was a kid, I would go home at 3:00 and watch TV straight through to the end of Letterman at 1:30 in the morning.I was obsessed with comics.And I would watch Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno and study them as if it was Tolstoy.
Judd Apatow
#77. Back then, you seemed like a crazy person when you were trying to push the boundaries of network TV. People looked at you, and they were offended by the fact that you didn't follow the generic rules of what was expected on network TV.
Judd Apatow
#78. I really think more about being honest and truthful about feelings and how people behave for the movies that I direct, but I also love movies like Zohan and Anchorman, just balls to the wall, how much can you make people laugh in one 90 minute period.
Judd Apatow
#79. I feel the responsibility to make things which on some level have something positive to say.
Judd Apatow
#80. I would love to branch out a little bit and ... do a Judd Apatow type of movie. It just looks like it's so much fun.
Serinda Swan
#82. I always felt as a kid that I was underappreciated, invisible or weird, but I've always secretly thought people would one day appreciate what is different about me. I'm always putting that message out there.
Judd Apatow
#83. I'm just trying to be truthful and collaborate with people who have interesting things to say.
Judd Apatow
#84. For me, until I know that the audience really gets what I'm trying to communicate I'm not done.
Judd Apatow
#85. The great thing about Eminem is, he's just hysterical. You forget, people like Eminem because he is riotously funny. And he's a great actor.
Judd Apatow
#86. When you make a movie, you just send it off into the world. You never actually live it with the crowd.
Judd Apatow
#87. When people lose their jobs, they can either get another job or be entrepreneurs. In the music industry, a lot of people have attempted the latter by starting their own labels, but in the age of digital downloads, it's very difficult to succeed.
Judd Apatow
#88. When the entire country was watching one show there was a major discussion happening; is it possible for that to happen in a 1 million channel universe?
Judd Apatow
#89. When I met Judd Apatow, he told me I should start writing screenplays. They'd be really bad at first, but the more I did it, the better I'd get.
Bill Hader
#90. I put on a big show when I write something I think is funny.
Judd Apatow
#91. I hear Amy Schumer on Howard Stern, and I think, "I wish there was a movie that starred her, because she's so interesting," and then at some point I go, "I guess I have to get involved, because it's not happening right now. Maybe I should help try to make that happen."
Judd Apatow
#92. Some stories feel like they need more time or less time to tell. To not obsessively have to trim or add that final two or three minutes is very helpful, because you can just organically follow how the story feels.
Judd Apatow
#93. Mel, if you're going to go up to the bell, ring it.
Judd Apatow
#94. I think a lot of studios today are run by women, and we are entering a time when a lot of women have evolved in Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade and wanted to become writers and comedians.
Judd Apatow
#95. Eventually, the nerds and the geeks will have their day.
Judd Apatow
#96. I try to just save a fresh, clear head for whoever I'm working with, so hopefully it's helpful that there's someone who doesn't have to sit in the editing room for 12 hours a day, and who's blinded by the massive footage and options that they have.
Judd Apatow
#97. I think there have been so many documentaries about pop stars, made by pop stars. It's a new phenomenon. People making these movies where they praise themselves and show their own weaknesses. it's all designed to make you love them even more.
Judd Apatow
#98. Comedies are very hard to do. They are difficult. Unless there's the Judd Apatow school, where they're like okay, we know that, we're going to do those. Or unless it's something that's far to the other side.
Don Cheadle
#99. Every time I'm in editing, there's always a moment where you think, "Maybe this should be six or seven minutes shorter, but I'm losing character and story that I think is important." When I like things, I'm not in a rush for them to end.
Judd Apatow
#100. Parents don't realize that when they teach you about the Holocaust too early, it ruins you for life.
Judd Apatow
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