- Nyswaner, Ron: You know, I was so blessed to be apart of this movie, Philadelphia.
- Nyswaner, Ron: When I watch that film what I'm really seeing is a family album of a lot of lost relatives, in a way.
- Nyswaner, Ron: The central relationship in that movie is between Tom Hanks' character, Andrew, and Denzel Washignton's character, Joe.
- Nyswaner, Ron: My nephew had just been diagnosed with AIDS. What most people forget that in 1988 when you were diagnosed with AIDS that was a death sentence.
- Nyswaner, Ron: So we responded to that tragedy by trying to make a movie, but it took us a long time to find the story to tell within that theme.
- Nyswaner, Ron: We started with: Let's make a movie about AIDS.
- Nyswaner, Ron: Being inspired by a story that was a lawsuit and realizing that the best way to tell a story about AIDS that would attract an audience is to tell it in a familiar, entertaining genre.
- Nyswaner, Ron: The characters that intrigued me are characters who don't know quite the life that they are supposed to live.
- Nyswaner, Ron: The types of people don't interest me, what interests me is that the characters have something in them that is unresolved.