Quote

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

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
Generous
Honest
Artist
Give
Giving
Thing
Way
People
Unflinching

More quotes by Charlie Kaufman

Image
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
Image
Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true.
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
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
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
There is so much crap in the world, both in show and other businesses, that I try to be vulnerable myself, in the hopes that there is some truth I can get to, that makes people feel less alone in the world.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I do throw out a lot of ideas, and I forget completely about them.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
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
Image
I graduated from college in 1980.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
I try to present something that is true so I don't further destroy the world with my contribution to it.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
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
Image
You spend most of your time as a director trying to move forward with the movie. It happens on a daily basis, if not more than once a day, that you are struggling with budgetary constraints. Whereas when you're writing, the limitation that you have is your imagination. So it's decidedly non-pragmatic.
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
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
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
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
Image
I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
I often have a theme in mind when I'm starting. I know that I want everything to be in a world of, say, evolution, or guilt.
Charlie Kaufman