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We falsely interpret the world around us. We ignore evidence that doesn't support our prior beliefs and we convince ourselves we know things we don. We think we know things we don't know.

Errol Morris

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Errol Morris
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: February 5
Actor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Non-Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Hewlett
New York
Errol Mark Morris
Around
Interpret
Things
Ignore
Think
Convince
Thinking
Beliefs
World
Evidence
Support
Belief
Falsely
Doesn
Prior

More quotes by Errol Morris

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Maybe [killers] is one of my real passions. Why deny it?
Errol Morris
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I used to say that interviewing others was perhaps the way I could stop talking and start listening. It's a kind of enforced silence.
Errol Morris
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I used to work as a private detective years and years ago. And my boss gave me this one very simple piece of advice about trying to figure out who to interview first in any investigation. His recommendation: Always pick the people who were fired. Pick the people who are pissed off.
Errol Morris
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I've had people turn me down. Not all that many, but certainly it happens.
Errol Morris
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I asked [Donald Trump] if he had any advice for Charles Foster Kane and he said, Yeah, get yourself a different woman.
Errol Morris
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Nothing is so obvious that it's obvious.
Errol Morris
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There's a line I love in Conan The Barbarian where someone says, That used to be another snake cult, now I see it everywhere. That's certainly true of documentaries. I wouldn't say it's ubiquitous, but it's become close to ubiquitous. It's everywhere.
Errol Morris
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It's pretty clear that fame isn't inextricably connected with merit .
Errol Morris
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I've been horribly depressed (lately), which, as you know, can be terribly time-consuming. I mean, if you're going to do it right, that is.
Errol Morris
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Everything is a reenactment. We are reenacting the world in the mind. The world is not inside there. It does not reside in the gray matter of the brain.
Errol Morris
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I am profoundly skeptical about our abilities to predict the future in general, and human behavior in particular.
Errol Morris
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A lot of the distinctions that we make between drama and documentary are spurious. We're deeply confused about these issues. About the difference between the two, about where documentary ends and drama begins.
Errol Morris
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There is something about the photographs that is endlessly disturbing. The fact that we like to think of them as torture actually hides what is really deeply offensive about them.
Errol Morris
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The first Polaroid ever took of someone in my family was my son when he was about four years old.
Errol Morris
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I probably wouldn't have done [ Fred Leuchter story] if it was just a story about an executioner or a holocaust denier, but the combination of the two elements was irresistible. So yeah, I find it strange that there are so many people out there now.
Errol Morris
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Certain kinds of intimacy emerge on a phone call that might never occur if you were sitting right next to the other person.
Errol Morris
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[Elsa Dorfman]was well known. Certainly in the Boston area, she's well known as a portrait photographer. My wife always wanted to meet her and then there was some benefit where she was taking pictures.
Errol Morris
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When you start talking about the known knowns and the unknown unknowns, you're thrown into a crazy meta-level discussion. Do I know what I know, do I know what I don't know, do I know what I don't know I don't know. It becomes a strange, Lewis Carroll - like nursery rhyme.
Errol Morris
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The perfect war is started for obscure reasons, is hopelessly murderous, and accomplishes nothing.
Errol Morris
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I used to live in New York City, then when my son was two years old we moved to Cambridge Massachusetts and we've been there ever since. My son is now twenty-nine years old, so we've been up there for a while.
Errol Morris