I think you can't go into any story-breaking process thinking, 'What if they come off as unlikeable?' You just gotta break the story because if you know who your character is, the story will tell you. The story will dictate and say, "This feels off-kilter for this particular person."

Amy Sherman-Palladino

Categorized in : Thinking Character What If

Girl power in my mind is to let girls be exactly what they are. Let them be angry. Let them be resentful. And rebellious. Let them be hard and soft and loving and sad and silly. Let them be wrong. Let them be right. Let them be everything. because, they are everything.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

girl mind silly

You can have a good moment with a parent you are estranged from, and you have a great moment, and then the next time you see them, everything's back to the way it was before and you guys are throwing knives at each other.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

knives guy parent

You've gotta have a path [in your life]. And then, within that path, you have to be flexible. When things aren't working, you've gotta cut bait and find something else, but if you don't have a path, you're just dead.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

bait cutting path

I would recommend that any writer get off their ass at least once and just try it. Directing is a completely different set of muscles. It also affects your writing because, once you start directing, you tend to write your scripts with directing in mind.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

mind writing trying

Writing is a sad process, sitting on your ass for many, many hours, alone in a room, smelling like coffee, sadness and bitterness, and watching your youth leave.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

sadness coffee writing

I like a certain style of show, I like a certain pace, I like a rhythm, I like a lot of comedy in with my drama.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

style pace drama

Gilmore Girls was the highlight of my ridiculous life. I can't wait to sit with these unbelievable broads and relive a time where sleep did not exist, where stress and coffee were mama's little helpers, and where we all dove into the deep end together to make something weird and very, very cool.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

stress coffee sleep

Life doesn't tend to fix things or wrap them up in bows.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

bows wraps

Families can be the most detrimental things to have in your life. They are sometimes the most poisonous relationships that people have. Sometimes family is the thing that keeps you from ever achieving what you want to achieve, and yet people hold it and hold it and grab it and try to fix it and twist it and turn it.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

twists trying people

Every pilot I've ever written, I've fallen deeply and madly in love with. It's the only way I work.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

madly-in-love pilots way

With directing, you have to wake up early, which stinks, but you get to hang out with the crew, you're laughing, you're active, and you're working with the actors. It's just more fun than writing. Writing is very hard.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

up-early writing fun

To me, crazy is not someone who has a creative vision and will fight for it.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

crazy fighting creative

When you write for a show that's not yours, your job is to hear the voices of the characters and write as best you can for those voices.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

writing jobs character

These television shows that have 14 shots of somebody looking at each other with the wind blowing through their hair drive me insane.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

wind-blowing insane hair

It helps, if you've directed, to be able to write a script that is director-friendly. You're really telling them [directors], "This is how it works on this show." It takes some of the guesswork out of it.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

work-out writing friendly

I grew up in the Valley, and I didn't know any of our neighbors. I think when you grow up like that, there's always sort of a fantasy of a place where everybody knew each other, and you had that safe sort of feeling.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

growing-up feelings thinking

I think I would be making a mistake to actively try and just do everything completely different from 'Gilmore Girls.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

girl mistake thinking

I grew up where my parents would literally shove me in the car rather than have to say hello to a neighbor.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

hello car parent

If something ain't working, it ain't working. You can't stick with it.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

working-it sticks ifs

As a writer, all you want to do is write for great actors. That's all.

Amy Sherman-Palladino

actors want writing