Stanley Kubrick Quotes


 
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Best 43 Quotes by Stanley Kubrick – Page 1 of 2

“A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.”

“A satirist is someone who has a very skeptical view of human nature, but who still has the optimism to make some sort of a joke out of it. However brutal that joke might be.”

“Any time you take a chance you better be sure the rewards are worth the risk because they can put you away just as fast for a ten dollar heist as they can for a million dollar job.”

“Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.”

“Art consists of reshaping life but it does not create life, nor cause life.”

“Bad films gave me the courage to try making a movie.”

“Be suspicious of people who have, or crave, power. Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous.”

“Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good and it trains you to think objectively when you're in trouble.”

“Either you care, or you don't. There's no in-between. And if you care, then go all of the way.”

“Everything has already been done. every story has been told every scene has been shot. it’s our job to do it one better.”

“Everything has changed, but the process of telling a story has not changed. It's like cavemen sitting around the fire; somebody's going to tell the story. Somebody is drawing on the wall. You're communicating. You're trying to learn and teach at the same time. You're your own student and you're your own teacher, but the process is of the communicating.”

“How could we possibly appreciate the Mona Lisa if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: 'The lady is smiling because she is hiding a secret from her lover.' This would shackle the viewer to reality, and I don't want this to happen to 2001.”

“I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want.”

“I don't like doing interviews. There is always the problem of being misquoted or, what's even worse, of being quoted exactly.”

“I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit.”

“I never learned anything at all in school and didn't read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old.”

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“There's really no point in doing anything in life because it's all over in the blink of an eye. The next thing you know, rigor mortis sets in.”


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“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.”

“I used and abused drugs and alcohol. When I stopped doing that it became a lot clearer that life goes from inside to giving as opposed to taking and destroying.”

“I've got a peculiar weakness for criminals and artists. Neither takes life as it is. Any tragic story has to be in conflict with things as they are.”

“I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, ‘don’t try to fly too high,’ or whether it might also be thought of as ‘forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.”

“If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.”

“If you really want to communicate something, even if it’s just an emotion or an attitude, let alone an idea, the least effective and least enjoyable way is directly. It only goes in about an inch. But if you can get people to the point where they have to think a moment what it is you’re getting at, and then discover it, the thrill of discovery goes right through the heart.”

“In any case, once you're dealing on a nonverbal level, ambiguity is unavoidable. But it's the ambiguity of all art, of a fine piece of music or a painting - you don't need written instructions by the composer or painter accompanying such works to 'explain' them. 'Explaining' them contributes nothing but a superficial 'cultural' value which has no value except for critics and teachers who have to earn a living.”

“It's a mistake to confuse pity with love.”

“Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved-that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.”

“Never say no to an idea - you never know how that idea will ignite another idea.”

“No philosophy based on an incorrect view of the nature of man is likely to produce social good.”

“Nothing is as dangerous as a sure thing.”

“One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man makes a film.”

“Regret isn't going to get me anywhere. It's like being obsessed with something. It doesn't bring you anywhere.”

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“Your best side? My dear, you’re sitting on it.”


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