Paul Schrader

Born: July 22, 1946 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

Married to: Mary Beth Hurt (6 August 1983 – present) (2 children)
Jeannine Oppewall (1969 – 1976) (divorced)

QUOTES:

What fascinates me are people who want to be one thing but who behave in a way contradictory to that. Who might say, “I want to be happy, but I keep doing things that make me unhappy.”.

We believed in a very real hell and very real evil. My mother took my hand once and stabbed me with a needle. She said, “You know how that felt, when the needle hit your thumb? Well, hell is like that… all the time!”.

If you have made a film that has been shelved or discarded, nobody–not your wife or best friend–will ever believe it is any good, because they [Hollywood studios] don’t discard $35-million investments.

Every time you think the studios have fucked you every way they can, they come up with a new way.

I killed more screen characters in the first four films I wrote than I have since. I realized I had to stop writing violence.