Mike Mills Quotes

Powerful Mike Mills for Daily Growth

About Mike Mills

Mike Mills is an American film director, screenwriter, and musician who has made a significant impact on independent cinema with his poignant and introspective films. Born on October 17, 1966, in Sacramento, California, Mills developed an early interest in music as the bassist for the critically acclaimed indie rock band, R.E.M., from 1994 to 2008. This experience with narrative storytelling and emotional depth would later translate into his filmmaking career. In 1997, Mills made his directorial debut with the short film "Those Who Resemble the Angels," which premiered at Sundance Film Festival. His first feature-length film, "Thumbsucker" (2005), was a coming-of-age drama about a teenager struggling with orthodontia and drug addiction. The film garnered critical acclaim and established Mills as a promising new voice in American cinema. Mills' second feature, "Beginners" (2010), starred Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer, and told the story of a young man who discovers his father's homosexuality shortly after his mother's death. The film was met with critical praise and earned Christopher Plummer an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Mills' most recent work is the critically acclaimed "20th Century Women" (2016), a semi-autobiographical drama set in 1979 Santa Barbara, revolving around a young man and the women who shape his life. The film showcases Mills' penchant for exploring complex relationships, personal growth, and the vagaries of memory. Throughout his career, Mike Mills has proven himself to be a thoughtful and innovative storyteller, blending personal experiences with universal themes to create emotionally resonant films that capture the nuances of human experience. His work continues to inspire and captivate audiences worldwide.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"Life is short, and time is our most precious resource. In the end, we take with us not the things we own, but the memories we've made and the lives we've touched."

Mike Mills' quote underscores the importance of cherishing time as our most valuable resource in life. The implication is that material possessions do not endure beyond one's existence, whereas memories and the impact we have on others are lasting legacies. This suggests that we should prioritize experiences, connections, and personal growth over accumulating wealth or objects, as these are the aspects of life that truly enrich us and define our character.

"You can't predict the future, but you can create it."

The quote by Mike Mills underscores the idea that while we cannot know with certainty what will happen in the future, we have the power to shape our own destiny through our actions and decisions. It encourages us to take control of our lives, make informed choices, and pursue our goals actively, rather than simply waiting for events to unfold. Essentially, it's a call to action to create the life we want by proactively making positive changes in our personal and professional journeys.

"Don't wait until you're ready before you start doing what you want to do. Take the leap and grow your wings on the way down."

The quote by Mike Mills encourages individuals to take action, even if they don't feel fully prepared or equipped, and instead embrace the learning process as they move forward with their aspirations. It suggests that growth and self-improvement can occur during the act of doing something, rather than only beforehand in a state of readiness. This perspective encourages courage, resilience, and continuous personal development.

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."

This quote emphasizes the importance of embracing change rather than resisting it. By immersing ourselves in the process of change, moving along with it, and adapting accordingly, we can not only understand its implications but also find opportunities within it. In essence, Mike Mills encourages us to view change as a dance, where each step leads us forward towards growth and development.

"Life is not a dress rehearsal. Don't wait until tomorrow to live today."

This quote by Mike Mills emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment, rather than postponing experiences and joy until an undetermined future. It encourages us to seize opportunities and express ourselves fully, as life is not a rehearsal for another chance. Instead, we should actively participate in our own lives today, creating meaningful connections, pursuing passions, and making the most of each day because tomorrow is not guaranteed.

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.

- Mike Mills

Feel, Everybody, Part, Humans

I am intrigued by inanimate objects. They're a piece of history, someone's statement and ideas of life.

- Mike Mills

History, Ideas, Objects, Inanimate

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

Both My Parents, Smelled, Sad Things

I feel like kids are the perfect psychic investigators of their parents, and kids understand their parents' unconscious better than the parents ever do.

- Mike Mills

Perfect, Like, Unconscious, Investigators

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.

- Mike Mills

Feel, Talking, Everybody, Just Looking

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.

- Mike Mills

Love, Beginning, Very, Ups

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.

- Mike Mills

Love, Aesthetic, Chronically, Sentimental

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.

- Mike Mills

Sad, Shame, Very, Unattractive

OK, so my parents were married in 1955 and my mom knew my dad was gay and my dad knew he was gay and so I was, like, 'Why in the heck did you get married?' Like, what was going on? What was that time? It's like this crazy paradox that my whole life is based on, or my family's based on. So I spent a lot of time trying to understand '55.

- Mike Mills

Mom, Why, Dad, OK

Films are tricky because for years you're getting told you're about to make it and you're about to be busy for four or six months or you're about to be on tour for press. But these things tend not to happen, and meanwhile you've said 'no' to many things 'cause you thought you were going to be busy, for years, for years this happens.

- Mike Mills

Thought, About, Cause, Meanwhile

I'm not a craftsman of graphics or art or film. I'm more of an idea generator and manufacturer.

- Mike Mills

Art, More, Idea, Manufacturer

To be honest, we have no control over what's going on with a movie, much less what people are going to think of it. Your whole life is wound up in it but you don't have control and you have to get used to being on that turbulent plane without trying to fly it. The less you think about all that the better.

- Mike Mills

Movie, About, Plane, Turbulent

I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people.

- Mike Mills

Mind, Making, Allen, Letters

Life doesn't just happen; it's constructed through the history of power. And that's something I am interested in and so is the art world: a world that's trying to engage socially, with a leftist slant, to work out how we got here.

- Mike Mills

Through, Here, Got, Slant

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.

- Mike Mills

Student, Some, Part, Legitimacy

Everyone talks to their dog, and then in your mind the dog talks back. A talking dog can provide the words that a stunted protagonist finds difficult to muster.

- Mike Mills

Mind, Words, Everyone, Muster

Shooting a film is like a kismet quest. You have thirty days and you need magic to happen. So that's why I wear suits. I'm praying to the gods, and I'm doing everything I can to respect the powers of the world.

- Mike Mills

Magic, Doing, Gods, Powers

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.

- Mike Mills

My Life, Another, Very, Vivid

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.

- Mike Mills

Think, Vibe, I Think, Hip-Hop

I've always known that I love directing but I was really aware of it while making 'Beginners.' I am my happiest when I'm on set directing. I am also my kindest. When the actors get in front of the camera, it makes them very vulnerable. I am so in love with them for trying so hard.

- Mike Mills

Love, Happiest, Very, Kindest

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.

- Mike Mills

Kind, Some, Like, Never Stop

There's some things that you learn as you're shooting, and as you're editing that are key, because when you start you don't have the brain that can finish it. You don't really know what it is, and that's the key job; figuring out what you actually have, not what you're dreaming of having.

- Mike Mills

Shooting, Some, Out, Figuring

Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich.

- Mike Mills

Memory, Rich, Go, Together

I think I make films to help bolster and feed the part of me that wants to remain in a positive relationship with the world and to engage in it. So hopefully in non-sentimental ways, I'm trying to make something that helps make me happy.

- Mike Mills

Happy, I Think, Part, Bolster

To me, sadness and humor aren't disrelated and humor is the best tool I've had against the sadness in my life.

- Mike Mills

Sadness, My Life, Against, Tool

Over and over again, I'm trying to express or communicate these big and small struggles to the world, and really to myself.

- Mike Mills

Small, Big, Over, Struggles

There is a drunkenness to grief, which is good.

- Mike Mills

Good, Which, Drunkenness, Grief

The weird thing about grief, for me at least, was when each of my parents died, for a year or two afterwards I was pretty wildly brave - just willing to take life on.

- Mike Mills

Year, Pretty, Afterwards, Grief

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.

- Mike Mills

Pretending, Putting, Instead, Experienced

The littlest thing can have the strongest connection when you're grieving. Your Proustian, poetic nerve is turned up to ten.

- Mike Mills

Grieving, Poetic, Turned, Nerve

I love being a writer-director. I couldn't imagine directing without writing it. You have to write and tell your stories - that's what directing is to me.

- Mike Mills

Love, Imagine, Stories, Directing

When a film works, the director had a lot to do with that, but the director also didn't have a lot to do with that. There are so many moving parts. It's really about being open to how the river is flowing and trying to get on the river.

- Mike Mills

Director, About, Works, Flowing

The oldest sibling always knows things that the younger ones don't.

- Mike Mills

Always, Younger, Oldest, Sibling

I don't really believe that documentary is objective reality and fiction is all illusion.

- Mike Mills

Reality, Believe, Fiction, Documentary

One good and bad thing about New York is there's so much exciting stuff and so many people doing something interesting. I actually find in New York that you become more careerist and more focused on what's the newest, hippest thing.

- Mike Mills

Doing, Bad, About, So Many People

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.

- Mike Mills

Bad, Screening, Nailed, Premiere

I think that animals aren't less intelligent than humans, they're just of a different intelligence. We have five million smell-sensitive cells in our nose, they have two hundred and fifty million - they can smell emotion. They can smell different types of emotion, they just have another type of intelligence.

- Mike Mills

Fifty, I Think, Hundred, Different Types

I'm into people's emotional lives and relationships and the complications of living. That's my turf.

- Mike Mills

Relationships, Living, Turf, Complications

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.

- Mike Mills

Doing, Commercial, Compare, Gives

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

- Mike Mills

Think, Big, I Think, Details

It's a very sweet and often problematic situation where people feel like they know me and they're concerned for me. It creates these strange little intimate moments.

- Mike Mills

Like, Concerned, Very, Problematic

Making a movie is so hard, you'd better make movies about something you really know about. And even more, it's really good to make movies about things you need to figure out for yourself, so you're driven the whole way through. It's going to make things more crucial for you.

- Mike Mills

Through, Movie, Crucial, Driven

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.

- Mike Mills

Want, Normal, Films, Humans

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.

- Mike Mills

Dress, Director, Like, Captain

I pretty much believe that a film is a film and when an audience watches a film, they finish it.

- Mike Mills

Watches, Audience, Pretty, Finish

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.

- Mike Mills

Art, Want, Global, Instantly

Film is endlessly just beyond your reach. I think that's what I love so much about it.

- Mike Mills

Love, Think, I Think, Endlessly

If you ask me, the place that a story happens is as equal character. It's almost like an ecological viewpoint: These people are living in this piece of land, and in this piece of land in this time this is possible. For me, I almost think location first. It's time first - what year is it - then where are we, and then who is in it.

- Mike Mills

Character, Year, Almost, Location

I definitely believe in the energy of the set and the energy of the actor, way more than your written word.

- Mike Mills

Believe, More, Set, Written Word

I guess I watch movies to make myself happier a lot.

- Mike Mills

Movies, Lot, Guess, Happier

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.

- Mike Mills

Explore, More, Figure, Isolated

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