Jerzy Kosinski Quotes

All cats are the same in the dark, says the proverb. But it certainly did not apply to people, with them it was just the opposite. During the day they were all alike, running in their well-defined ways. At night they changed beyond recognition. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I always have a sense of trembling, but so does a compass, after all. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

At times, feeling the wind on my brow, I went numb with horror. In my imagination I saw armies of ants and cockroaches calling to one another and scurrying toward my head, to some place under the top of my skull, where they would build new nests. There they would proliferate and eat out my thoughts, one after another, until I would become as empty as the shell of a pumpkin from which all the fruit has been scraped out. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

So this is insanity. How interesting. What happens next? ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Persons who have been homeless carry within them a certain philosophy of life which makes them apprehensive about ownership. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

What we remember lacks the hard edge of fact. To help us along we create little fictions, highly subtle and individual scenarios which clarify and shape our experience. The remembered event becomes a fiction, a structure made to accommodate certain feelings. This is obvious to me. If it weren't for these structures, art would be too personal for the artist to create, much less for the audience to grasp. Even film, the most literal of all the arts, is edited. - Jerzy Kosinski ~ Erica Jong

There were innumerable selves that he evoked in her. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

- Growth has its season. There are spring and summer, but there are also fall and winter. And then spring and summer again. As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all be well. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I do not gather things, I prefer to rent them rather than to possess them. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

It mattered little if one was mute; people did not understand one another anyway. They collided with or charmed one another, hugged or trampled one another, but everyone knew only himself. His emotions, memory, and senses divided him from others as effectively as thick reeds screen the mainstream from the muddy bank. Like the mountain peaks around us, we looked at one another, separated by valleys, too high to stay unnoticed, too low to touch the heavens. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Of all mammals, only a human being can say 'no. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I write when I feel like it, and I feel like it most of the time. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

[Nabokov's] language is made visible ... like a veil or transparent curtain. You cannot help seeing the curtain as you peek into the intimate rooms behind. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

He had found the one calm place in the midst of the storm, a quiet voice calling him to earth. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

One day he trapped a large raven, whose wings he painted red, the breast green, and the tail blue. When a flock of ravens appeared over our hut, Lekh freed the painted bird. As soon as it joined the flock a desperate battle began. The changeling was attacked from all sides. Black, red, green, blue feathers began to drop at our feet. The ravens ran amuck in the skies, and suddenly the painted raven plummeted to the freshly-plowed soil. It was still alive, opening its beak and vainly trying to move its wings. Its eyes had been pecked out, and fresh blood streamed over its painted feathers. It made yet another attempt to flutter up from the sticky earth, but its strength was gone. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Lovers are not snails; they don't have to protrude from their shells and meet each other halfway. Meet me within your own self. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I'm sure there are aspects of my personality buried within me that will surface as soon as I know I am completely loved. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Take a look at the books other people have in their homes. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

That's why she keeps her nails long, she says, to be able to scratch and claw. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

My choice of a life of adventure may well have been a result of the fact that action raised my blood pressure giving me enough energy to live. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Photography was the first foreign language of my artistic expression. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

The popular culture says ... Do what you do, your life is predestined, like the installment plan on your house. There's not much you can do about it. Make your payments, live it, get sick, die, don't make any trouble. It is the Master Charge of destiny. Try to get your high credit rating. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

All my father saw was what he wanted to see. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Gatherings and, simultaneously, loneliness are the conditions of a writer's life ~ Jerzy Kosinski

You don't die in the United States, you underachieve. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Take whatever you can from others, and when there is nothing left, forget about them. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

All my life I've been hiding. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Everyone is irrational some of the time and in particular everyone is susceptible to the availability error. I give a final striking example ... In 1969, Jerzy Kosinsky's novel Steps won the American National Book Award for fiction. Eight years later some joker had it retyped and sent the manuscript with no title and under a false name to fourteen major publishers and thirteen literary agents in the US, including ... the firm that had originally published it. Of the twenty-seven people to whom it was submitted, not one recognised that it had already been published. Moreover, all twenty-seven rejected it. All it lacked was Jerzy Kosinsky's name to create the halo effect: without the name, it was seen as an indifferent book. ~ Stuart Sutherland

People say, "Well, you went on television, it enlarged your readership." It did not at all, not at all. I might as well tell you, I lost some readership, because the profound audience felt somehow bothered by my too easy manner. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I do like to live in other people's homes. I enjoy being a guest. I am an inexpensive guest. When one lives in another's home he can enter into the psychic kingdom of that person. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

There is serenity and calm under the water's surface. You move easily and glimpse a world you have never seen before. You think of running out of oxygen and the idea of sharks dart out at you. You sense that there is something treacherous hiding behind every reef; no matter how much you explore you won't ever know what it is. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

She protected herself by making herself believe no-one else could ever really understand her. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

In a garden, things grow ... but first, they must wither; trees have to lose their leaves in order to put forth new leaves, and to grow thicker and stronger and taller. Some trees die, but fresh saplings replace them. Gardens need a lot of care. But if you love your garden, you don't mind working in it, and waiting. Then in the proper season you will surely see it flourish. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Accents don't show up in music. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Travel gives me the opportunity to walk through the sectors of cities where one can clearly see the passage of time. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

When people claim to know who I am, I can no longer act freely. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

There's a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return. I suspect that whenever I articulate my thoughts or translate my impulses into words, I am betraying the real thoughts and impulses which remain hidden. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Wouldn't it be easier to change people's eyes and hair than to build big furnaces and then catch Jews and Gypsies to burn them? ~ Jerzy Kosinski

People prefer to avoid confronting deformity and when they do it's only for kicks. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Can the imagination, any more than the boy, be held prisoner ?"
- from the foreword to the 1976 edition of "The Painted Bird ~ Jerzy Kosinski

The recent Dictionary of Occupational Titles lists over twenty thousand specialized professions in America; being a millionaire is not one of them. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Had it been possible for me to fix the plane permanently in the sky, to defy the winds and clouds and all the forces pushing it upward and pulling it earthward, I would have willingly done so. I would have stayed in my seat with my eyes closed, all strength and passion gone, my mind as quiescent as a coat rack under a forgotten hat, and I would have remained there, timeless, unmeasured, unjudged, bothering no one, suspended forever between my past and my future. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I don't fret over lost time - I can always use the situations in a novel. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

It seems that what I really want is a drug that will increase my consciousness of others, not myself. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

My cynicism continuously undermines her faith in her own ability to master her moods. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Here was one place where I could find out who I was and what I was going to become. And that was the public library. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Going around under an umbrella interferes with one's looking up at the sky. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I am curious about grownups, not children. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

A trait which differentiated New York from European cities was the incredible freedom and ease in which life, including sexual life, could be carried on, on many levels. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

No big corporation would promote a hunchback. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

If we reduce social life to the smallest possible unit we will find that there is no social life in the company of one. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

What about the war?' the young woman sitting on Chance's left said, leaning close to him.

'The war? Which war?' said Chance. 'I've seen many wars on TV.'

'Alas,' the woman said, 'in this country, when we dream of reality television wakes us. To millions the war, I suppose, is just another TV program. But out there, at the front, real men are giving their lives. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

As a boy I got the idea that death was an animal which lay curled inside waiting to swallow us. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

And really the purpose of art - for me, fiction - is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Chance was to work in the garden, where he would care for plants and grasses and trees which grew there peacefully. He would be as one on them: quiet, open hearted in the sunshine and heavy when it rained. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I felt lost in this maze. In the world into which Gavrila was initiating me, human aspirations and expectations were entangled with each other like the roots and branches of great trees in a thick forest, each tree struggling for more moisture from the soil and more sunshine from the sky. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

The principle of art is to pause, not bypass. The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. This requires a moment of pause
a contract with yourself through the object you look at or the page you read. In that moment of pause, I think life expands. And really the purpose of art
for me, of fiction
is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have. That is the moment of finding something which you have not known about yourself, or your environment, about others and about life. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

It's not that you aren't likable. On the contrary. You are. It's just that one wonders if you haven't made a career out of being so likable. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

No one can help me find answers, least of all someone who claims he's found a solution to life. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Homelessness is a part of our American system. There should be nothing wrong with this condition as long as the individual is not sentenced to unnecessary suffering and punishment. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Do you realize that one out of every four Americans is unbalanced? Think of your three closest friends. If they seem normal, then you are the one. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I remember how, as a boy, I used to collect the cork tips of my father's cigarettes and stick them in my stamp albums. I believed they contained his unspoken words, which one day would explain everything. I have not changed. Now I explore my memories, trying to discover the substructure hidden beneath my past actions, searching for the link to connect them all. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Banks introduced the installment plan. The disappearance of cash and the coming of the credit card changed the shape of life in the United States. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

I deserve no punishment at all for being who I am. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

Every bush can burn if you fire it with your imagination. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

He who wants to get to the source must swim against the current. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Optimists and pessimists differ only on the date of the end of the world. ~ Stanisław Jerzy Lec

If you do not know his language, you will never understand a foreigner's silence. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Hopefully, great science fiction films help you think about issues that relate to yourself, whether it's: What's my purpose? Why am I here? What is it that makes me who I am? Those are the kind of questions my favorite science fiction films ask. ~ Joseph Kosinski

I don't think every movie should be made in 3-D, and it should depend on whether it's one of these films that's more immersive or needs to be taken to another world. I'm interested in other formats. ~ Joseph Kosinski

Those who put blinders on their eyes should remember that the set also includes bridle and a whip. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Do I believe? God only knows. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Suppose you succeed in breaking the wall with your head. And what, then, will you do in the next cell? ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Oh, to be old again," said the young corpse. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Mankind deserves sacrifice - but not of mankind. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

On the top of each peak you are on the edge of the abyss ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

A sweet thing, perspective - a chance to see your enemies so small. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

There were grammatical errors even in his silence. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

For me, I feel like, between 'Tron' and 'Oblivion,' I've gotten to fulfill my 'Star Wars' fantasies, in a way. ~ Joseph Kosinski

A tired exclamation mark is a question mark. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

I'm a huge electronic-music fan. ~ Joseph Kosinski

All that matters on the stage is good art. ~ Jerzy Jeszke

Believers believe in resurrection, atheists only in comebacks. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Creativity is an integral part of our personality. ~ Jerzy Vetulani

Well I grew up in the Midwest, and I think the first film that blew my mind was 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' ~ Joseph Kosinski

For me the Blu-ray version is kind of the definitive version of the movie. ~ Joseph Kosinski

You never want to intentionally make a confusing movie. ~ Joseph Kosinski

Value your words. Each one may be the last. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

There are a lot of limitations so you have to ultimately focus on what you think the most important storyline is. ~ Joseph Kosinski

Working with Joe [Kosinski], definitely. I loved working with Joe. For a guy who doesn't really come from the fiction world - he comes from advertising and architecture - he's extremely easy-going and very calm. He's extremely detailed, but a very generous and fun director to work with. He really encouraged me to find the fun in the part and to have fun with it. ~ James Frain

But I grew up in a place where no one knew anyone in the entertainment business, I never knew it was an actual career. The closest I ever got to movies was going to watch them, and I thought that's the way it would be, so I never considered working in this business. ~ Joseph Kosinski

First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Who ever asked theses and antitheses if they want to become syntheses? ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Movies don't sit in the theaters for an entire summer like they did in 1982. Now you've got a two- or three-week shelf life so you need to have that awareness right off the bat. And in order to make a lot of people know about your movie, you need to be out there banging the drum and showing your stuff. ~ Joseph Kosinski

Within a month of intense life in the mountains is going through so much, what used to be a period of several years; This is a occupancy for people greedy for life - human life is not enough. ~ Jerzy Kukuczka

Perfect imitations must share the fate of the originals. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

It is not theatre that is indispensable, but something quite different. To cross the frontiers between you and me. ~ Jerzy Grotowski