Charlie Kaufman famous quotes

You are what you love. Not what loves you.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Love You #Adaptation

The conventional wisdom is - people say this all the time - you should only write something when you're far enough away from it that you can have a perspective. But that's not true. That's a story that you're telling. The truth of it is here, right now. It's the only truth that we ever know. And I'm interested in that truth and the confusion being part of the experience and sorting it your way through and figuring it out.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #People #Confusion

Failure is a badge of honor. It means you risked failure. And if you don’t risk failure, you’re never going to do anything that’s different from what you’ve already done or what somebody else has done.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Mean #Risk #Honor

From my vantage point in writing a story, I can't and don't and have no interest in thinking about the level of sophistication of the audience. I can only think about what interests me, and maybe what I would want to see if I were watching the movie. To me, that's the key to writing something that's not pandering.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Thinking #Keys

The world needs you. It doesn't need you at a party having read a book about how to appear smart at parties - these books exist, and they're tempting - but resist falling into that trap. The world needs you at the party starting real conversations, saying, 'I don't know,' and being kind.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Smart #Real #Fall

People ask me all the time, "What are your influences? Are you trying to do Beckett?" It's like, "No, I'm trying to do me." Whatever that is. I don't know what that is, but that's the basis. I'm trying to be true and I'm trying to be honest.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#People #Trying #Honest

I think of myself as a guy who tries to write screenplays and now has tried to direct one. Anything more than that is meaningless and it gets in the way of being a real human being.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Real #Writing #Thinking

David Lynch is very important to me, and he does dreamlike movies, but my dreams are not like David Lynch's dreams. I have no interest in copying anybody's work. It would never occur to me to want this to look like someone else's thing.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Dream #Important #Copying

I think that people have expectations of themselves and other people that are based on these fictions that are presented to them as the way human life and relationships could be, in some sort of weird, ideal world, but they never are. So you're constantly being shown this garbage and you can't get there.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #People #Expectations

I don't have a style. I wouldn't say I have a style as a writer, either. I know people have said "This is what he does," but when I'm writing, I don't think about that. I don't think about a style.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Thinking #People

Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won’t be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can’t help but be that. But more importantly, if you’re honest about who you are, you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognise him or herself in you and that will give them hope.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Lonely #Writing #Years

I really like when critics reveal their subjectivity and their humanity. I prefer it when people say nice things, but if they say not-nice things or things that are critical, I'm open to it and I accept it. I mean, I have to live with it. But I do think there's a dishonesty in not acknowledging that you're a person with an opinion. I think it's almost like a power grab.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Nice #Mean #Thinking

The only honest and generous thing for me to do is to give people myself. That's all I've got as an artist, so I want to do that in an unflinching way.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Artist #People #Giving

Every day of your life, you have information that enters your head, and that information informs your understanding of things, or shifts it, or changes it, or deepens it, or confuses you. Every day, every moment of every day - it's like this thing that happens.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Understanding #Information #Moments

I do like escapism. I like going to the movies on a Friday night and seeing something fun.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Friday #Fun #Night

Scary is time passing and sickness and dying and regret and isolation and loneliness and relationship problems - as opposed to a guy in a hockey mask, which didn't seem that scary.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Regret #Loneliness #Hockey

Do not simplify. Do not worry about failure. Failure is a badge of honour. It means you risked failure.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Mean #Worry #Badges

I choose to write characters from the inside because I feel like that's the way I'm gonna get the most honest version of them.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Character #Way

Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Way

The difference between a movie and a play is that the production you end up with is the production. If a movie that I spent time on turns out to be crap, it's never going to be made again.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Play #Differences #Ends

I can never watch anything I've been involved in, because I know it, and I know what the making of it was like, and I know what's been cut out and changed. I just know it.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Cutting #Watches #Changed

The sad thing about working on a movie is that you can never see the movie.
-- Charlie Kaufman

I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Moving #Want #Keep Moving

I actually think I'm probably more interested in structure than most people who write screenplays, because I think about it.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Thinking #People

I graduated from college in 1980.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#College

I have a tendency to hire people who tend to be unattractive to the studios. Maybe this is a bad idea.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Ideas #People #Unattractive

I have a lot of health anxiety.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Anxiety

I have ideas written down some places, but usually I can't find them. I'm not very organized.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Ideas #Organized

I don't think screenwriting is therapeutic. It's actually really, really hard for me. It's not an enjoyable process.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #Process #Screenwriting

I think you just assume that your memory is just sort of a video playback of your experience, but it's nothing like that at all. It's a complete refabrication of an event and a lot of it is made up, because you're filling in spaces.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Memories #Thinking #Space

I tend to not only read reviews, but also every little stupid thing online. It's a very bad idea, and there's a lot of angry people in the world. And it's weird to absorb all that weirdness.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Stupid #Ideas #People

I have a personality that tends to be somewhat compulsive, and I do tend to think in a circular way. I dwell on the same things over and over and I try to figure out different ways of looking at the same issue.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #Issues #Personality

The passionate ones, the ones who go after what they want, may not get what they want, but they remain vital, in touch with themselves, and when they lie on their deathbeds, they have few regrets.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Regret #Lying #Passionate

clementine: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon. Joel: I know Clementine: What do we do? Joel: Enjoy it.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Gone #Enjoy

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #Complicated

There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#People #Stories #World

There's theater in life, obviously, and there's life in theater.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Theater

I try to make things interesting and thought-provoking.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thought Provoking #Interesting #Trying

I'm trying to tell a story and do it truthfully.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Trying #Stories

I do believe you have a wound too. I do believe it is both specific to you and common to everyone. I do believe it is the thing about you that must be hidden and protected, it is the thing that must be tap danced over five shows a day, it is the thing that won't be interesting to other people if revealed. It is the thing that makes you weak and pathetic. It is the thing that truly, truly, truly makes loving you impossible. It is your secret, even from yourself. But it is the thing that wants to live.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Believe #Interesting #People

The only way to do something interesting is not care if you fail.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Interesting #Care #Way

Sometimes I don't like the books that I'm reading.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Book #Reading #Sometimes

I've kind of come to the conclusion that what passes for realism in movies has nothing to do with reality and that my stuff is more realistic than that.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Reality #Stuff #Kind

I wanted to deal with someone's idea of their relationship.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Ideas #Deals #Wanted

I really don't have any solutions and I don't like movies that do.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Solutions

I can talk endlessly about characters, or why someone did this or that, and what that dynamic and interaction is. I really love it, and I think that actors really respond positively to the fact that I like to talk about that stuff, because I'm not sure that all directors do.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Character #Thinking #Stuff

I'm old enough, by a long shot, to remember going to the library and spending days researching. If I was looking for a line from a poem or something else I needed, that would be the trip I would have to take.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Long #Library #Would Be

If you create something that is asking for people to respond as they're going to respond, you have to allow them to respond as they're going to respond. Some of the people are going to be uninterested and some people are going to be mad for some reason, which is their business. That's just the way the world is.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#People #Mad #Asking

I like actors - I used to be one.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Actors #Used

I'm in my mind a lot. I live there.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Mind

When I'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience, rather than separate myself from it and look back at it from a distance with clarity and tell it as a story. Because that's how life is lived, you know?
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Distance #Writing #Emotional

Meet me in Montauk...
-- Charlie Kaufman

You and I share the same DNA. Is there anything more lonely than that?
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Lonely #Dna #Share

I think generally I'm kind of interested in subjective experience, what goes on inside someone's head, that being all they really know of the world.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #Goes On #World

I think if I've worked anything through with screenwriting it's that I'm not going to be able to work anything through.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #Able #Screenwriting

I'm not a celebrity. I'm intentionally and defiantly not a celebrity. I don't have any interest in it. I don't have any talent for it. I keep my personal life out of my public life as cleanly as I can.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Talent #Cleanliness #Interest

As a writer, or as a filmmaker, you have to present yourself, and part of what yourself is is what you're interested in, or what you think is funny, or what you think is sad, or what you think is horrible.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Funny #Thinking #Horrible

As a kid, I had a background in theater.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Kids #Theater #Backgrounds

I do throw out a lot of ideas, and I forget completely about them.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Ideas #Forget

I don't write genre stuff in any form. I'm not interested in it. I always try to do the opposite of that.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Opposites #Trying

I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #People #Screenplays

I think if something resonates, even if it's surreal, it's because it is relatable and I think that that's a core issue for me.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #Issues #Surreal

I've had to deal, a lot, with my own sense of intimidation at meeting famous people - especially actors, but really any famous people.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#People #Actors #Intimidation

In a lot of movies, especially big studio ones, they're not constructed in any other way than to get people to like them and then tell their friends. It's a product.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#People #Way #Bigs

I don't subscribe to anything. I sit there and I try to think about what seems honest to me.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #Trying #Honest

There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Believe #Ideas #People

I know that as a very young child, I was afraid of death. Many children become aware of the notion of death early and it can be a very troubling thing. We're all in this continuum: I'm this age now, and if I live long enough I'll be that age. I was 20 once, I was 10, I was 4. People who are 20 now will be 50 one day. They don't know that! They know it in the abstract, but they don't know it. I'd like them to know it, because I think it gives you compassion.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Children #Thinking #Compassion

Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Inspirational #Communication #Talking

I like titles that are a little difficult, because it's kind of counterintuitive.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Titles #Littles #Kind

So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Character #Trying

I do have, at different times, a certain kind of self-consciousness in the world, an insecurity.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Self #Insecurity #Different

There's no way to approach anything in an objective way. We're completely subjective; our view of the world is completely controlled by who we are as human beings, as men or women, by our age, our history, our profession, by the state of the world.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Birthday #Men #Views

I hate a movie that will end by telling you that the first thing you should do is learn to love yourself. That is so insulting and condescending, and so meaningless. My characters don't learn to love each other or themselves.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Hate #Love Yourself #Character

We try to organize the world, which isn't organized the way our brains want to organize it. We tell stories about the people in our lives, we project ideas onto them. We project relationships with people, we make our lives into stories. I don't think we can avoid doing that.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #Ideas #People

Writing is a journey into the unknown.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Journey #Adaptation

I studied acting at Boston University. I was in the theater department there. Somewhere in there I decided that wasn't what I was going to do and I went to the B.F.A. film program at N.Y.U.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Boston #Acting #Film

Before you start production, you have characters you have created without actors in mind, then all of a sudden you've got actors. They bring an enormous amount in creating these characters, and creating the dynamics between the characters that you've written.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Character #Creating #Mind

Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Decision #Restriction

There really is only one ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps going and gets complicated and there's loss. Everything involves loss; every relationship ends in one way or another.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Loss #Stories #Way

Sand is overrated. It's just tiny little rocks.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Rocks #Littles #Tiny

We're all one thing, like cells in a body. 'Cept we can't see the body. The way fish can't see the ocean. And so we envy each other. Hurt each other. Hate each other. How silly is that? A heart cell hating a lung cell.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Hurt #Hate #Ocean

The end is built into the beginning.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Chaos #Ends

I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Play #Novel #Backgrounds

I want to create situations that give people something to think about.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Thinking #People #Giving

I was trying to figure out what a memory feels like.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Memories #Trying #Figure Skating

Why do I fall in love with every woman I see that shows me the least bit of attention?
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Falling In Love #Attention #Show Me

If you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do with me.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Clue

She was nice. Nice is good.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Nice

The way I work is not the way that you work, and the whole point of any creative act is that. What I have to offer is me, what you have to offer is you, and if you offer yourself with authenticity and generosity I will be moved.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Generosity #Creative #Way

The way I write is very much without kind of a goal. I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Character #Goal

Seriously, I don't consider myself a writer. I don't think I have writing talent. But I will continue to do it.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Writing #Thinking #Talent

I'm not into extreme sports or something. I just live a quiet life.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Sports #Quiet #Just Live

My time on the set is the least of my involvement. Most of my time is in pre-production and post-production.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Involvement

It occurred to me that every work of art is a synecdoche, there's no way around it. Every creative work that someone does can only represent an aspect of the whole of something. I can't think of an exception to that.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Art #Thinking #Creative

I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That's what I want to explore. We're all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we're going to die, each of us secretly believing we won't.
-- Charlie Kaufman

#Believe #Knowing #Dying