Quote

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

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
Often
Everything
Mind
World
Theme
Guilt
Starting
Evolution

More quotes by Charlie Kaufman

Image
And so not only do you have to make that work, you can't really start putting the thing together in any form because some of the shots are very short and obviously many of them take so long, you're waiting months and months and months before you can see if it's going to be working emotionally.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
I think everything I do is based on my experience in the world in one way or another.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
I'm not into extreme sports or something. I just live a quiet life.
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 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
When I'm writing a script, before I can write dialogue or anything, I have two or three hundred pages of notes, which takes me a year. So, it's not like what happens next. I've got things that I'm thinking about but I don't settle on them. And if I try to write dialogue before then, I can't. It's just garbage.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
You're dealing with the body, and you're dealing with bodily functions. We romanticize everything about people in movies.
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 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
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
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
Image
Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
I want to do my own thing, and I'm trying to get closer to realizing that as a filmmaker.
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
Image
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
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 do a lot of things intuitively. I'm not often consciously aware of what I'm doing. It's like in a dream: There's something going on that's powerful but you don't know exactly why.
Charlie Kaufman
Image
I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal.
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