Mike Mills quotes

The oldest sibling always knows things that the younger ones don't. (Mike Mills)
Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich. View quote
Mike Mills
There's great sadness and life doesn't work out like you would want, on a lot of levels, but there's no need to feel all alone. This happens to everybody, so there's no self-pity. This is the ride that humans are on, and all of it is essential for our natural part of it. View quote
Mike Mills
I would hate to think I'm promoting sadness as an aesthetic. But I grew up in not just a family but a town and a culture where sadness is something you're taught to feel shame about. You end up chronically desiring what can be a very sentimental idea of love and connection. A lot of my work has been about trying to make a space for sadness. View quote
Mike Mills
I am intrigued by inanimate objects. They're a piece of history, someone's statement and ideas of life. View quote
Mike Mills
No one leaves the edit room thinking, 'Yeah, I nailed that one!' Everyone I know goes into their first premiere or their first screening thinking, 'I screwed up so bad. I'm sorry, I messed up.' It's just a real common feeling. View quote
Mike Mills
I definitely believe in the energy of the set and the energy of the actor, way more than your written word. View quote
Mike Mills
Sadness is a super important thing not to be ashamed about but to include in our lives. One of the bigger problems with sadness or depression is there's so much shame around it. If you have it you're a failure. You are felt as being very unattractive. View quote
Mike Mills
Humans are vulnerable, messy little animals and that's normal. And all I want to do is make a space for that in my films. View quote
Mike Mills
L.A. is so isolated and unhip in a way; it gives you room to figure out who you are and explore more personal stuff. View quote
Mike Mills
My experience, with both my parents, is that grief has a lot of down, sad things, but I was also really emotionally raw, in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely, my relationships were hotter, and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules. (Mike Mills)
There is a drunkenness to grief, which is good. View quote
Mike Mills
My dad's gay experiences really had a very positive influence on me and my straight relationships - how to better accept all the weirdness and ambiguity and ups and downs and paradoxes. I knew from the beginning I was writing about love. View quote
Mike Mills
It's funny now how much we look at - whatever you want to call it: art, design, culture stuff, film - online, and how in the online world, you're instantly global. View quote
Mike Mills
Being a good Hans Haacke student, part of his influence on me is that there's no difference between a gallery show and a film - or even an ad and a T-shirt-in terms of cultural legitimacy. They're just different contexts in which to have some sort of communication. View quote
Mike Mills
Film is endlessly just beyond your reach. I think that's what I love so much about it. View quote
Mike Mills
Actors are pretending for you, but they're not lying. They are not putting on a guise instead of themselves. They are finding things inside that they have experienced. View quote
Mike Mills
As someone who grew up in a house where there wasn't a lot of talking, I'm used to just looking at the world. And in general I often feel like I just don't understand what's happening. That everybody else does, but I don't quite get it. View quote
Mike Mills
To me it's like, every time I'm a director, like today, you're the captain of the ship, so you better dress like it. You're the host of the party. View quote
Mike Mills
To me, sadness and humor aren't disrelated and humor is the best tool I've had against the sadness in my life. View quote
Mike Mills
The littlest thing can have the strongest connection when you're grieving. Your Proustian, poetic nerve is turned up to ten. (Mike Mills)
As a son of a man who pretended to be one thing for 33 years of my life and then was another thing, the questions of 'what is real' and 'what is not real' are very blurrily vivid to me. View quote
Mike Mills
My graffiti really comes more from a May '68, sort of Situationist vibe than the hip-hop world. I think a real graffiti artist would find me a poser. View quote
Mike Mills
People ask 'How does doing a film compare to doing an ad?' Well, when you're doing a commercial you don't have to sell tickets. You have a captured audience. Which is actually completely rare and great; it gives you a lot of freedom. When you make a film, you have to do advertisements for the film. View quote
Mike Mills
There's some movies I watch, they're kind of like my anti-anxiety pill, my anti-depressant pill. I watch them at least once or twice a month probably. And I never stop learning from them as a filmmaker. View quote
Mike Mills