Quote

I try to make things interesting and thought-provoking.

Charlie Kaufman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charlie Kaufman
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: November 1
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Provoking
Interesting
Thought
Trying
Make
Things

More quotes by Charlie Kaufman

Image
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
Image
I do have, at different times, a certain kind of self-consciousness in the world, an insecurity.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
If I were doing somebody else's script or I adapted a book by Philip Roth, on set there could be a million different interpretations of the material and people could argue with me. Certainly on Synecdoche, New York we had discussions and arguments, but I felt like I had authority because I'm a writer.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
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
Image
I'm not working on anything. I was trying to write something new . . . I guess the goal for me now, at least at this point, is to try to direct again.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
I have a background in theater, so I have experience with actors. I like actors - I used to be one.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
I really don't have any solutions and I don't like movies that do.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
When I found myself in that situation - that actors are like children, I tried to be successful. And when it worked and I figured out how to communicate that things were good - or at least okay - then I felt pleased.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
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
Image
I'm Jewish, and my family is Jewish. I was very interested in Woody Allen when I was growing up, but I don't think of myself as a Jewish writer. I'm more from suburbia, American suburbia. I'm more from the '70s than I am from Judaism.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
When you approach middle age, lots of stuff happens. Your body is aging, you're watching people around you get sick, you're watching people die, your mortality becomes very present at that point in your life.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
Do not simplify. Do not worry about failure. Failure is a badge of honour. It means you risked failure.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
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
Image
I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
I actually think I'm probably more interested in structure than most people who write screenplays, because I think about it.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
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
Image
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
Image
There are things that aren't represented in movies that are a big part of everyone's life. This is a movie about health and about the body.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
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