Matt Zoller Seitz > Quotes

“Can’t you find something better to do other than dining on the drama of other people’s lives?”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion

“I’m searching for something. That’s what’s really going on here. That’s all I can really say.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“He was becoming a man, but you can tell me, people just didn’t like that kid, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know why. He was not an empowered teenager like they’re usually portrayed nowadays. They hated AJ, and I thought he was a really good, confused, young person.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“it was more often a collection of short stories featuring the same characters, and “Employee of the Month” in particular feels like an ugly tale with a beginning, a middle, and a definitive end—just not the one most in the audience wanted.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“What did I mean to say? I meant to say that time here is precious, and it could end at any moment, and somehow, love is the only defense against this very, very cold universe. That’s what I meant to say.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“Walk Like a Man” often indicates that The Sopranos’s true interest isn’t gangsterism, but psychotherapy, and psychology’s determination to unpack, define, and fix the roots of human unhappiness despite evidence that it’s not possible to do such a thing, because people are just too complicated, and therapy’s methods too reductive (despite their insistence on respecting the mysteries of the personality).”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“sometimes, or oftentimes, art just is. It’s not attempting at anything.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“We all know David Chase’s view of human nature is bleak. The Sopranos is set in a universe where good and evil have renamed themselves principle and instinct. Animals are not known for their inclination to act on principle.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“Tony tells Melfi that he knew he had a golden moment after Junior shot him, and that he let it slip away; the implication is that his Las Vegas trip was a half-assed attempt to create a new chance for epiphany. But is such a thing possible, for Tony or anyone else? Especially when it’s just so easy to dwell on old grudges and feuds—to keep stewing in the juices, like the steak Christopher was cooking in “Walk Like a Man,” long after the flame’s turned off?”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“Changing one’s essential nature—one’s entire world view—is not easy, even when, like Tony, you’ve suffered (and inflicted) trauma on an unimaginable scale, and have immediate life-or-death reasons for making a major change.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“Therapists look for connections and symbolism in the text of the patient’s life story, analyzing it as scholars might parse a novel or painting.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“sometimes, or oftentimes, art just is. It’s not attempting at anything. It’s not providing answers. But I had to grow up a little bit before I got to that.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“We all have this image we want to portray, that we’re in control. Control is a big issue in human life. Falling down, or having violence arrayed against you, is a lack of control, and all your pretenses, your image—that all goes down the toilet, who you’re trying to project yourself as.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“M: So you were trying to answer the question, “What do we have to do to make you people not like these guys?” D: Yeah—to make you see what this show is about. It’s about people who’ve made a deal with the devil, starting with the head guy. It’s about evil. I was surprised by how hard it was get people to see that.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“Almost nobody gives a damn about your life but you, and according to Chase, there’s a good chance you don’t even give as much of a damn as you think. If you did, you’d already have done the hard work necessary to change yourself to match your idealized image. Most people aren’t capable of that. It’s too hard, we’re too lazy as a species, and life is just too long and too filled with problems that need immediate solving. And then, at some point, you’re not in the picture anymore, and it’s all a moot point, for you anyway.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“You just go by what’s an entertaining storyline. You just feel your way through it. If it feels thrilling to you, then you do it. There’s ideas you get that are good, and some that are thrilling.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“every time you introduce a new character, you don’t have to play “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“Numbness is the means to comfort’s end. If you’re numb to morality, to empathy, you can do whatever you want and feel little or no guilt.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“That’s Tony in a nutshell—always pushing toward some realization greater than what his relatives, colleagues, and friends can muster, but invariably coming up short.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“I tried to give each season a theme. Season one, Tony as a son, that was the theme. Then Tony as parent, then Tony as a husband. It went like that. A: And season four is the marriage as a whole? D: Yes, you’re right.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“but the Family functions as a bus, too, one that everyone’s either afraid or incapable of staying off for long.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“To me, people do change, but it’s a long process. People always think, “Well, people have trauma and then they change.” But I don’t know if that’s true.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“all the long-term stuff, most of that usually played out, but not in the detail I thought it would, because we’d come up with something else, or something would happen.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“Was there ever any frustration on your part, or the part of the other writers, that the audience loved these gangsters so much? D: Yes. M: Was there any element in this stuff we’re talking about—violence against women, racism, escalating levels of brutality, the sadism of characters like Ralphie—where this was your response to these viewers? Like, “You can’t like these guys! Goddammit, what’s wrong with you?” D: Yes.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“We realize that all these acts of self-reinvention and self-determination will nonetheless be trampled by the greedy and the powerful, then ground up in the tank treads of history.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel

“Chase is an intuitive writer, somebody who’s not trying to send messages or create puzzles for people to solve, but is just trying to make people feel and think and question themselves.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“You know, it sounds kind of silly, but when stuff like that would happen, I would think, “This show is meant to be.” I would feel like, “I’m not organizing this; someone else is, or a greater power, a muse, is organizing it. How could this fall into my lap like this?”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“Therapists look for connections and symbolism in the text of the patient’s life story, analyzing it as scholars might parse a novel or painting. They find deeper meanings in dreams, fantasies, and seemingly random events, and uncover suppressed truths by perceiving patients’ tone and word choices when talking about themselves, their relationships, and their thoughts.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“I tried to give each season a theme. Season one, Tony as a son, that was the theme. Then Tony as parent, then Tony as a husband. It went like that.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, The Sopranos Sessions

“Sally asks Don to explain the electoral college. He declines. Some things, kids shouldn’t know.”
― Matt Zoller Seitz, Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion