Quentin Tarantino famous quotes

When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, 'no, I went to films.'
-- Quentin Tarantino

#School #People #Film

It's my job to look at other people's humanity and it's my job to, 24/7, look at my life and listen to everything everyone says, watching their faces, the little idiosyncratic aspects of human beings - it's like a sponge, I take it in.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Jobs #People #Humanity

My plan is to have a theatre in some small town or something and I'll be manager. Ill be the crazy old movie guy.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Crazy #Guy #Theatre

I see characters lying all the time in a lot of Hollywood movies. They can't do this because it would affect the movie this way or that or this demographic might not like it. To me a character can't do anything good or bad, they can only do something that's true or not.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Lying #Character #Might

As a writer, I demand the right to write any character in the world that I want to write. I demand the right to be them, I demand the right to think them and I demand the right to tell the truth as I see they are.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Character #Writing #Thinking

To me, truth is the big thing. Constantly you're writing something and you get to a place where your characters could go this way or that and I just can't lie. The characters have gotta be true to themselves.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Lying #Character #Writing

If you just love movies enough, you can make a good one.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Movie Love #Enough

I try not to get analytical in the writing process. I try to just kind of keep the flow from my brain to my hand as far as the pen is concerned and go with the moment and go with my guts.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #Hands #Brain

Dogs got personality. Personality goes a long way.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Dog #Long #Personality

In real life there are no bad guys. Everybody just has their own perspective.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Real #Real Life #Perspective

If you want to make a movie, make it. Don't wait for a grant, don't wait for the perfect circumstances, just make it.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Perfect #Waiting #Want

I just don't feel the whole white guilt and pussy-footing around race issues. I'm completely above all that. I've never worried about what anyone might think of me 'cause I've always believed that the true of heart recognize the true of heart.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Heart #Thinking #White

You name any horrific thing, and I can make a joke out of it.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Names #Horrific #Jokes

I'm not writing novels, the screenplays are my novels, so I'm gonna write it the best that I can. If the movie never gets made, it'd almost be okay because I did it. It's there on the page.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #Pages #Made

To me, America is just another market.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#America

I won't even think about acting in a role where I didn't do a back story for a character.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Character #Thinking #Acting

The easiest way to kill a cult is to make that cult accessible.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Way #Cult

I am a writer, I deal in words. There is no word that should stay in word jail, every word is completely free. There is no word that is worse than another word. It's all language, it's all communication.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Communication #Jail #Language

To me, torture would be watching sports on television.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Sports #Would Be #Television

There are a lot of bad screenplays so if you write a good screenplay people are going to respond to it.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #People #Screenplays

I steal from every movie ever made.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Stealing #Made

My writing's like a journey. I'll know some of the stops ahead of time, and I'll make some of those stops and some of them I won't. Some will be a moot point by the time I get there. You know every script will have four to six basic scenes that you're going to do. It's all the scenes where your characters really come from.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Character #Writing #Journey

Everything I learned as an actor, I have basically applied to writing.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #Actors

If I wasn't a film-maker, I'd be a film critic. It's the only thing I'd be qualified to do.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Film #Makers #Critics

If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Scary #Answers #Asking

Violence is fun, man.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Fun #Men #Violence

One of the things about writing a novel is you can do it any way you want. It's your voice that's important and I see absolutely no reason why a screenplay can't be the same. It makes it a hell of a lot easier when you're the writer and the director.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #Voice #Important

Violence is one of the most fun things to watch.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Fun #Violence #Watches

To really get to know people and discover humanity, which is what I truly think writers and actors do, you've got to be interested in other human beings, you have to be interested in humanity in general, and you have to do some discovering of humanity and different people.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Thinking #People #Humanity

I actually think one of my strengths is my storytelling.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Thinking #Storytelling

I'm very much a man of the moment. I can think about an idea for a year, two years, even four years all right, but what ever is going on with me the moment I write is gonna work it's way into the piece.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #Men #Thinking

I want to risk hitting my head on the ceiling of my talent. I want to really test it out and say: O.K., you're not that good. You just reached the level here. I don't ever want to fail, but I want to risk failure every time out of the gate.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Design #Risk #Levels

I'm not superstitious in my normal daily life but I get that way about writing, even though I know it's all bullshit. But I began that way and so, that's the way it is. My ritual is I never use a typewriter or computer. I just write it all by hand. It's a ceremony. I go to a stationary store and buy a notebook and then fill it up.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Notebook #Writing #Typewriters

To me, Godard did to movies what Bob Dylan did to music: they both revolutionized their forms.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Bob #Form #Dylan

I really become the characters when I'm writing them. I'll become one or two of them more than others, I'm consistent that way.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Character #Writing #Two

I want to have the fun of doing anime and I love anime, but I can't do storyboards because I can't really draw and that's what they live and die on.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Fun #Anime #Want

I'll write for a while and then I'll find an appropriate song and in a weird way the music will keep me in the mood. I find music to define the mood of the movie, the rhythm the movie is going to play in.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Song #Writing #Play

L.A. is so big that if you don't actually live in Hollywood, you might as well be from a different planet.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Might #Hollywood #Different

If you're trying to drop ten pages from a screenplay, it hurts like hell, but if you just put it away for a month and then take it out, you can do it just like that!
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Hurt #Trying #Pages

I have loved movies as the number one thing in my life so long that I can't ever remember a time when I didn't.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Numbers #Long #Remember

Emotion will always win over coolness and cleverness. It's when a scene works emotionally and it's cool and clever, then it's great. That's what you want.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Clever #Winning #Want

I couldn't spell anything. I couldn't remember anything, but I could go to a movie and I knew who starred in it, who directed it, everything.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Remember

I don't have any one way to tell a story. I don't have any rule book of how it's supposed to be done. But I've always said that if a story would be more emotionally involving told, beginning, middle, and end, I'll tell it that way. I won't jigsaw it, just to show what a clever boy I am. I don't do anything in my script just to be clever.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Clever #Book #Boys

As a viewer, the minute I start getting confused, I check out of the movie. Emotionally, I'm severed.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Confused #Minutes #Checks

I've always equated the writing process with editing, sort of like when I get through editing the movie, that's like my last draft of the screenplay.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #Editing #Lasts

I am a genre lover - everything from spaghetti western to samurai movie.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Samurai #Lovers #Spaghetti

I'm a big collector of vinyl - I have a record room in my house - and I've always had a huge soundtrack album collection. So what I do, as I'm writing a movie, is go through all those songs, trying to find good songs for fights, or good pieces of music to layer into the film.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Song #Writing #Fighting

I've always thought my soundtracks do pretty good, because they're basically professional equivalents of a mix tape I'd make for you at home.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Home #Tape #Soundtracks

I'm very happy with the way I write. I think I do it good. But I've never really considered myself a writer.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #Thinking #Way

To be a novelist, all I need is a pen and a piece of paper.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Pieces #Paper #Novelists

Movies are not about the weekend that they're released, and in the grand scheme of things, that's probably the most unimportant time of a film's life.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Movie #Weekend #Film

Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I'm lucky enough to be in the position where I don't make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Want #Pay #Lucky

I want to top expectations. I want to blow you away.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Blow #Expectations #Want

I'm a big collector of vinyl - I have a record room in my house - and I've always had a huge soundtrack album collection.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#House #Albums #Records

A writer should have this little voice inside of you saying, Tell the truth. Reveal a few secrets here.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Truth #Voice #Secret

I was kind of excited about going to jail the first time and I learnt some great dialogue.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Jail #Firsts #Kind

I don't really consider myself an American filmmaker like, say, Ron Howard might be considered an American filmmaker. If I'm doing something and it seems to me to be reminiscent of an Italian giallo, I'm gonna to do it like an Italian giallo.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Italian #Might #Filmmaker

I like it when somebody tells me a story, and I actually really feel that that's becoming like a lost art in American cinema.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Art #Cinema #Stories

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I'm writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I'm going to play for the opening sequence.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Movie #Writing #Play

It's very important that every movie I do makes money because I want the people that had the faith in me to get their money back.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Faith #People #Important

I don't believe in elitism. I don't think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Stupid #Believe #Thinking

If a Million People See My Movie, I Hope They See a Million Different Movies.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#People #Different #Filmmaker

My parents said, Oh, he's going to be a director someday. I wanted to be an actor.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Parent #Directors #Actors

The good ideas will survive.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Ideas #Brilliant Ideas

You should be semi-embarrasse d about certain people seeing your movie.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#People #Certain #Should

I've always been passionate about these different (film) genres. Kung fu movies, samurai movies, Japanese movies, all this kind of stuff, and my love for it, and just trying to present it in a way that other people can love it as much as I do.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Passion #People #Trying

Critics don't want to see directors they like make too much of a left turn. That's good for criticism.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Criticism #Directors #Want

A movie doesn't have to do everything. A movie just has to do a couple of things. If it does those things well and gives you a cool night at the movies, an emotion, that's good enough.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Couple #Night #Giving

You know what the funniest thing about Europe is? It's the little differences.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Country #Differences #Europe

To call Clive Barker a 'horror novelist' would be like calling the Beatles a 'garage band'... He is the great imaginer of our time. He knows not only our greatest fears, but also what delights us, what turns us on, and what is truly holy in the world. Haunting, bizarre, beautiful.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Beautiful #Band #Calling

I don't believe in putting in music as a band aid to get you over some rough parts or bad film making. If it's there it's got to add to it or take it to another level.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Believe #Add #Band

I didnt go to film school, i went to films
-- Quentin Tarantino

#School #Film

My mom took me to see Carnal Knowledge and The Wild Bunch and all these kind of movies when I was a kid.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Movie #Mom #Kids

Batman is not a very interesting character. For any actor. There is simply not much to play. I think Michael Keaton did it the best, and I wish good luck to Ben Affleck. But, you know who would have made a great Batman? Alec Baldwin in the '80s.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Character #Good Luck #Thinking

I want do a Mandarin language movie. It'll probably be the next movie I do after the one I do next.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Next #Want #Language

But can I tell the genuine-article Italian from the poseur Italian? No. To me they all seem like poseurs.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Italian #Genuine #Articles

I write movies about mavericks, about people who break rules, and I don't like movies about people who are pulverised for being mavericks.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #People #Break

Violence is a form of cinematic entertainment.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Entertainment #Violence #Form

Violence in real life is terrible; violence in movies can be cool. It's just another colour to work with.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Real #Violence #Life Is

Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Animal #Pigs #Eating

If there is something magic about the collaborations I have with actors it's because I put the character first.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Character #Magic #Actors

I look at 'Death Proof' and realize I had too much time.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Looks #Too Much #Realizing

I've always said Thomas Edison invented the movie camera to show people killing and kissing.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Kissing #People #Cameras

Just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Character #Mean

When I'm writing something, I try not to get analytical about it as I'm doing it, as I'm writing it.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Writing #Trying

All my movies are achingly personal.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Movie

When I was on The View, Barbara Walters was asking me about the blood and stuff, and I said, 'Well, you know, that's a staple of Japanese cinema.' And then she came back, 'But this is America.' And I go, 'I don't make movies for America. I make movies for planet Earth.'
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Views #Blood #America

I am not going to tell you how I believe, but I do believe in God.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Faith #Believe #Faith In God

And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my fingers upon thee!
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Brother #Anger #Names

Hamburgers! The corner-stone of any nutritious breakfast.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Hamburgers #Breakfast #Stones

Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Baby #Morning #Race

Reservoir Dogs is a small film, and part of its charm was that it was a small film. I'd probably make it for $3 million now so I'd have more breathing room.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Dog #Breathing #Rooms

I just grew up watching a lot of movies. I'm attracted to this genre and that genre, this type of story, and that type of story. As I watch movies I make some version of it in my head that isn't quite what I'm seeing - taking the things I like and mixing them with stuff I've never seen before.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Watches #Stories #Stuff

I cannot get myself interested in video games. I've been given video game players and they just sit there connected to my TVs gathering dust until eventually I unplug them so I can put in another special-region DVD player.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Player #Dvds #Dust

Sergio Leone was a big influence on me because of the spaghetti westerns.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Influence #Bigs #Spaghetti

It's a standard staple in Japanese cinema to cut somebody's arm off and have red water hoses for veins, spraying blood everywhere.
-- Quentin Tarantino

#Cutting #Blood #Hands