Kubrick Quotes

Barry was born clever enough at gaining a fortune, but incapable of keeping one. For the qualities and energies which lead a man to achieve the first are often the very cause of his ruin in the latter case. ~ Stanley Kubrick

You know, I often thought that the gangster and the artist are the same in the eyes of the masses. They're admired and hero-worshipped but there is always present underlying desire to see them destroyed at the peak of their glory. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Watching a Kubrick film is like gazing up at a mountaintop. You look up and wonder, how could anyone have climbed that high? ~ Martin Scorsese

In 'Winter's Bone,' it's literally the director and the camera operator. That's it. Just a super-small Kubrick crew. You know what I mean? Like, 8 people. ~ Bill Hader

When I made my first film, I think the thing was probably helped me the most was that it was such an unusual thing to do in the early 50s for someone who actually go and make a film. People thought it was impossible. It really is terribly easy. All anybody needs is a camera, a tape recorder, and some imagination. ~ Stanley Kubrick

I think one of the thing that makes a Kubrick film a great experience is the fact that he bends reality to his will and is so confident that he ends up creating something that is the island in the stream of pop culture and he takes a stand that's so firm and so confident and unyielding that it can't be ignored and I appreciate that. ~ Barry Ptolemy

Private Joker is silly and he's ignorant but he's got guts and guts is enough. ~ Stanley Kubrick

I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker. ~ Stanley Kubrick

The Beatles once approached Stanley Kubrick to do 'The Lord Of The Rings.' This was before Tolkien sold the rights. They approached him, and he said, 'No.' ~ Peter Jackson

The hardest thing in making a movie is to keep in the front of your consciousness your original response to the material. Because that's going to be the thing that will make the movie. And the loss of that will break the movie. ~ Stanley Kubrick

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light. ~ Stanley Kubrick

The director's job is to know what emotional statement he wants a character to convey in his scene or his line, and to exercise taste and judgment in helping the actor give his best possible performance. ~ Stanley Kubrick

How would you compare Polanski or Kubrick? I try not to do any comparisons. ~ Tim Roth

The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can retain interest as it conveys emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle. ~ Stanley Kubrick

In any case, once you're dealing on a nonverbal level, ambiguity is unavoidable. But it's the ambiguity of all art, of a fine piece of music or a painting - you don't need written instructions by the composer or painter accompanying such works to 'explain' them. "Explaining" them contributes nothing but a superficial 'cultural' value which has no value except for critics and teachers who have to earn a living. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Either you care, or you don't. There's no in-between. And if you care, then go all of the way. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Don't do anything. Just tolerate me and let me suffer, knowing how you feel. ~ Stanley Kubrick

The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. ~ Stanley Kubrick

You know, Michael, it's not absolutely true in every case that nobody likes a smart ass. ~ Stanley Kubrick

I didn't want murder. It's all gone wrong. ~ Stanley Kubrick

2001's production notes contain a number of startlingly prescient glimpses of the world we live in today. As of mid-1965, approximately the same time that the US Department of Defense was conceiving of the internet's direct predecessor, ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), Kubrick's intrepid band of futurists had seemingly already visualized important aspects of the new technology's implications. One document sent from Tony Masters to Roger Caras on June 29 listed matter-of-factly - under a letterhead replete with the roaring MGM lion - nine props that he asked Caras to help him with. Number one was "2001 newspaper to be read on some kind of television screen. Should be designed television screen shape; i.e., wider than it is high. ~ Michael Benson

There were IBM logos designed for the film, and there were IBM design consultants working with Kubrick on the layout of the controls and computer screens. ~ Douglas Trumbull

Anybody who runs is a VC. Anybody who stands still is a well-disciplined VC. ~ Stanley Kubrick

You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Bad films gave me the courage to try making a movie ~ Stanley Kubrick

There are few things more fundamentally encouraging and stimulating than seeing someone else die. ~ Stanley Kubrick

One does not have to make Frank Capra movies to like people. ~ Stanley Kubrick

What do you take me for? A fourteen karat sucker? ~ Stanley Kubrick

For me the most moving moment came when I first started working on 2001. I was already in awe of him, and he had very much already become Stanley Kubrick by the time the film started. ~ Keir Dullea

I don't like doing interviews. There is always the problem of being misquoted or, what's even worse, of being quoted exactly. ~ Stanley Kubrick

I never learned anything at all in school and didn't read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old. ~ Stanley Kubrick

I'm not afraid of dying tomorrow, only of being killed. ~ Stanley Kubrick

It's a mistake to confuse pity with love. ~ Stanley Kubrick

The best conversation with Stanley Kubrick is a silent one: you sit in a theatre and watch his films and you learn so much. ~ Peter Weir

I devoured each of what Halliday referred to as "The Holy Trilogies": Star Wars (original and prequel trilogies, in that order), Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Mad Max, Back to the Future, and Indiana Jones. (Halliday once said that he preferred to pretend the other Indiana Jones films, from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull onward, didn't exist. I tended to agree.)
I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors. Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith.
I spent three months studying every John Hughes teen movie and memorizing all the key lines of dialogue. ~ Ernest Cline

Everything has changed, but the process of telling a story has not changed. It's like cavemen sitting around the fire; somebody's going to tell the story. Somebody is drawing on the wall. You're communicating. You're trying to learn and teach at the same time. You're your own student and you're your own teacher, but the process is of the communicating. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all. ~ Stanley Kubrick

There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith. ~ Ernest Cline

Art consists of reshaping life but it does not create life, nor cause life. ~ Stanley Kubrick

I like collaboration, I like to incorporate other people's ideas [and] that's what happens when you do a big movie. Unless you're called Stanley Kubrick and you do an independent movie for like $200 million. ~ Michel Gondry

I haven't come across any recent new ideas in film that strike me as being particularly important and that have to do with form. I think that a preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it. ~ Stanley Kubrick

I don't want to direct a movie as good as Antonioni, or Kubrick, or Polanski, or whoever. I want it to be my own. I think I've got the seed of it and, what's more, that I can make movies that are different and informed by my taste. ~ Jack Nicholson

I'm just an old man and I smell bad, remember? ~ Stanley Kubrick

'Love' has that Kubrick tonality to it, but this is not a Stanley Kubrick movie - there will never be another. At the same time, 'Love' has a modern feel. For example: In one scene, these astronauts go through a wormhole sequence, and you feel like you're being slapped around inside your head by a sonic boom. ~ Tom DeLonge

Shooting a movie is the worst milieu for creative work ever devised by man. ~ Stanley Kubrick

I always admired Stanley Kubrick for the fact that he managed to beat the system somehow. I think he kind of had it all figured out. ~ Joel Coen

The best education in film is to make one ~ Stanley Kubrick

Kubrick was one of those directors who actually did practically everything in his movies. He actually directed, photographed, wrote, lit, edited - everything. A few people can be like that. ~ Vilmos Zsigmond

I'm happy - at times - making films. I'm certainly unhappy not making films. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Don't bury personal obsessions. Capitalize on them. ``The connection between personal obsession and the work you do is the most important thing.'

-- Be yourself. ``Singularity is what you need.'

-- Avoid self-censorship: ``We are very self-critical in a way that can be very destructive. In our culture there are voices in our head which have taught us to say, `Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you.' Don't ever think about anybody peering over your shoulder.'

-- Don't be afraid to show off, even if you think, ``I'm very close to making a complete fool of myself.'

-- Don't be afraid to entertain. ``I want to entertain. I don't want to lose people. I feel responsible as I write to give people the best time I can.'

-- ``Love your failures' instead of beating yourself up over them.

-- ``Learn to love the process' of writing.

-- Just do it. Barker likes something director Stanley Kubrick said: ``If you want to make a film, pick up a camera. ~ Clive Barker

The lasting and ultimately most important reputation of a film is not based on reviews, but on what, if anything, people say about it over the years, and on how much affection for it they have. ~ Stanley Kubrick

When Kubrick decided to go the black comedy route with his movie, he thought of me to give it that flavor. ~ Terry Southern

Minister: As I was saying, Alex, you can be instrumental in changing the public verdict. Do you understand, Alex? Have I made myself clear?
Alex: As an unmuddied lake, Fred. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, Fred. ~ Anthony Burgess

The book can also be a hat. ~ Stanley Kubrick

If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space? Those of us who are forced by their own sensibilities to view their lives in this perspective - who recognize that there is no purpose they can comprehend and that amidst a countless myriad of stars their existence goes unknown and unchronicled - can fall prey all too easily to the ultimate anomie. The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache. ~ Stanley Kubrick

I used and abused drugs and alcohol. When I stopped doing that it became a lot clearer that life goes from inside to giving as opposed to taking and destroying. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick went with his gut feeling: he directed 'Dr. Strangelove' as a black comedy. The film is routinely described as a masterpiece. ~ Tim Cahill

Take a stress pill and think things over
HAL in 2001 ~ Stanley Kubrick

Busy people begrudge the days being short.
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. ~ Stanley Kubrick

When the Nightingales
turn out the light
and the dark,
dressed for the opera,
begins its smothering,

I summon my guard dog.

I fashion the fierce shape of him
with fingers and thumbs,
and leash him to the wall.

The moon strokes his dew claws.

He gets me through
another long
Kubrick night. ~ Karen Knight

I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 but not any traditional, anthromorphic image of God. I don't believe in any of Earth's monotheistic religions, but I do believe that one can construct an intriguing scientific definition of God, once you accept the fact that there are approximately 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone, that each star is a life-giving sun and that there are approximately 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe. ~ Stanley Kubrick

The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in "2001: A Space Odyssey,' but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, "2001' is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe. ~ Roger Ebert

No philosophy based on an incorrect view of the nature of man is likely to produce social good. ~ Stanley Kubrick

He plays 'Celebrity,' at his first college party and here are his celebrities: "1. Hitchcock. 2. Kubrick. 3. Mankiewicz. 4. Preminger. And, for the modern crowd: 5. Tarantino. Yes. Yes. Filmmaker celebrities for the ages." (45) ~ Tim Federle

I have always been a huge fan of Ridley Scott and certainly when I was a kid. 'Alien', 'Blade Runner' just blew me away because they created these extraordinary worlds that were just completely immersive. I was also an enormous Stanley Kubrick fan for similar reasons. ~ Christopher Nolan

Kubrick never explained the ending to us, or what his intentions were. He didn't intend for it to be a predictable film. ~ Keir Dullea

It's so hard to do anything that doesn't owe some kind of debt to what Stanley Kubrick did with music in movies. Inevitably, you're going to end up doing something that he's probably already done before. It always seem like we're falling behind whatever he came up with. 'Singin' in the Rain' in Clockwork Orange - that was the first time I became so aware of music in movies. So no matter how hard you try to do something new, you're always following behind. ~ Paul Thomas Anderson

Be suspicious of people who have, or crave, power. Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved-that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure. ~ Stanley Kubrick

All my life I've always spoiled the things that meant the most to me. ~ Stanley Kubrick

In 1960, for example, the Committee for Long Range Studies of the Brookings Institution prepared a report for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration warning that even indirect contact - i.e., alien artifacts that might possibly be discovered through our space activities on the moon, Mars or Venus or via radio contact with an interstellar civilization - could cause severe psychological dislocations. The study cautioned that "Anthropological files contain many examples of societies, sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when they have had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life ways; others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines things. ~ Stanley Kubrick

The dead know only one thing, it is better to be alive ~ Stanley Kubrick

A satirist is someone who has a very skeptical view of human nature, but who still has the optimism to make some sort of a joke out of it. However brutal that joke might be. ~ Stanley Kubrick

You need to face, you need to confront, and really properly look at what's happening, and not try and explain it away or give it justifications or anything, because at this juncture, we still, by our finger nails, have the chance to make a difference, and turn this around. And to not take part and to just watch ... ... .., but if you don't push back, if you don't face it and confront it for what it is, it'll just takeover, and then no one will be free. ~ Vivian Kubrick

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick was brilliant at getting under the audience's skin. He was very interested in the idea of, 'How can I tell this with just a camera?' ~ Tom Cruise

You either care or you don't. ~ Stanley Kubrick

The whole idea of god is absurd. If anything, '2001' shows that what some people call 'god' is simply an acceptable term for their ignorance. What they don't understand, they call 'god' -Stanley Kubrick, interview, 1963 ~ Stanley Kubrick

I'd worked in Clockwork Orange with Stanley Kubrick and since Stanley was such a prestigious director this opened all sorts of doors for me - one of them being Star Wars. ~ David Prowse

Here's to five miserable months on the wagon and the irreparable harm that it's caused me. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Really, what I'm doing is an attempt to continue the best work of the people I adore: Francis Coppola and Scorsese and Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick and those amazing directors whose work I grew up with and loved. ~ James Gray

Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever. ~ Anthony Burgess

Suppose by chance you do get picked up. What have you done? You shot a horse; that isn't first degree murder; in fact, it isn't even murder; in fact, I don't know what it is. ~ Stanley Kubrick

It's not a remarkable note except for one thing. The typeface Tony used to print it is the exact typeface Kubrick used for the posters and title sequences of 'Eyes Wide Shut' and '2001'.
'It's Futura Extra Bold,' explains Tony. 'It was Stanley's favorite typeface. It's sans serif. He liked Helvetica and Univers too. Clean and elegant.'
'Is this the kind of thing you and Kubrick used to talk about?' I asked.
'God, yes,' says Tony. 'Sometimes late into the night. I was always trying to persuade him to turn away from them. But he was wedded to his sans serifs. ~ Jon Ronson

[Stanley] Kubrick was a great artist and a perfectionist. He always wanted the exact right thing. He did a million takes. Everything had to be perfect. I'm an imperfectionist. I don't really care that much about the work. I write quickly. I'm careless. I shoot carelessly. ~ Woody Allen

At age 12 I had an obsession with Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and then proceeded to watch all the other Kubrick films I could including a doc called Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures in which it was revealed to me that he started as a photographer ... I got a camera sometime shortly after, but spent many years just photographing flowers in my neighborhood. ~ Anton Yelchin

[Kubrick] was unique in the sense that with each new film he redefined the medium and its possibilities. But he was more than just a technical innovator. Like all visionaries, he spoke the truth. And no matter how comfortable we think we are with the truth, it always comes as a profound shock when we're forced to meet it face-to-face. ~ Martin Scorsese

Standing beneath the white light of an Apple store is like standing on a Stanley Kubrick movie set. His '2001: A Space Odyssey' predicted Jobs and a future where technology was our friend. Kubrick, of course, didn't like what he saw. And occasionally, I have my doubts. ~ Wesley Morris

If chess has any relationship to film-making, it would be in the way it helps you develop patience and discipline in choosing between alternatives at a time when an impulsive decision seems very attractive. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith. I spent three months studying every John Hughes teen movie and memorizing all the key lines of dialogue. Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive. You could say I covered all the bases. I studied Monty Python. And not just Holy Grail, either. Every single one of their films, albums, and books, and every episode of the original BBC ~ Ernest Cline

It's almost inherent, but I'm a massive [Stanley] Kubrick fan. I'm a big admirer of what guys like Christopher Nolan have been able to do. For me, to be able to try to make big films that reach a lot of people, and that hopefully have something to say, is a lofty goal, but that's my goal. ~ David Brooks

It's crazy how you can get yourself in a mess sometimes and not even be able to think about it with any sense and yet not be able to think about anything else. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Sanitised violence in movies has been accepted for years. What seems to upset everybody now is the showing of the consequences of violence. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Everybody has their black moments. ~ Stanley Kubrick

During the 1970s (and particularly because of Vietnam), it slowly became standard for absolutely everyone to go to college, particularly if they had no desire to get a real job. One of the results was a massive population of film school students, most of whom became waiters and valets in the 1980s. Since the vast majority of these Kubrick wannabes couldn't crack the motion picture industry, they saw opportunities to make minimovies in the world of rock 'n' roll. ~ Chuck Klosterman

I, uh, don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up, sir. ~ Stanley Kubrick

A lot of cinematic influences on 'Descender' - Kubrick for sure. '2001: A Space Odyssey' is my favorite movie. It has been since I was 12. I just love that film. ~ Jeff Lemire

How does anybody ever think of anything? ~ Stanley Kubrick