Tim Burton Quotes

My diagnosis," he said
"for better or worse,
is that your son is the result
of an old pharaoh's curse. ~ Tim Burton

That's what I always loved about [Federico] Fellini's films: You see the weird joy of the weird filmmaking family and the abstract craziness that goes along with it, and there's something about it that's quite beautiful. ~ Tim Burton

My name is Jimmy, but my friends just call me the hideous penguin boy. ~ Tim Burton

These last few years, working with Tim Burton, it's been the best time I've ever had. ~ Richard D. Zanuck

Most people say about graveyards: "Oh, it's just a bunch of dead people. It's creepy." But for me, there's an energy to it that it not creepy, or dark. It has a positive sense to it. ~ Tim Burton

I was never interested in what everybody else was interested in. I was very interiorized. I always felt kind of sad. ~ Tim Burton

Mr. Smith yelled at the doctor, What have you done to my boy? He's not flesh and blood, he's aluminum alloy! The doctor said gently, What I'm going to say will sound pretty wild. But you're not the father of this strange looking child. You see, there still is some question about the child's gender, but we think that its father is a microwave blender. ~ Tim Burton

I get so tired of people saying, 'Oh, you only make fantasy films and this and that', and I'm like, 'Well no, fantasy is reality', that's what Lewis Carroll showed in his work. ~ Tim Burton

If I had a choice about going to a meeting at a studio or changing a nappy, I'd choose the nappy. ~ Tim Burton

I think a lot of kids feel alone and slightly isolated and in their own world. ~ Tim Burton

Minister: Welcome, brother! Do you reject Satan and all his works?
Bunny Breckinridge: Sure. ~ Tim Burton

I want to be in a Tim Burton movie so bad. ~ Lilla Crawford

It's just a great, legendary comic book hero and it's one that has never been kind of been brought back to life after Lynda Carter. I mean, it's a reinvention. When Tim Burton reinvented Batman after Adam West, and when Donner reinvented Superman after George Reeves, it's time to do that with Wonder Woman. ~ Joel Silver

He can't fly around tall buildings, or outrun a speeding train, the only talent he seems to have is leaving a nasty stain! ~ Tim Burton

People say I am stuck in childhood, but it's not that. I remember seeing a Matisse retrospective, and you could see he started out one way, and then he tried something different, and then he seemed to spend his whole life trying to get back to the first thing. ~ Tim Burton

I do believe that you have to bring some degree of truth from yourself to the role [Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street ]in and I'll admit it here, I have shaved a grown man before. I have done it. And it wasn't Tim [Burton]. ~ Johnny Depp

Can a heart break, once it's stopped beating? ~ Tim Burton

When you're talking about Tim Burton, you're talking about a guy that has such a visual sense, an aesthetic, a storytelling style. It's like he's got his own genre. ~ Jackie Earle Haley

For me, one of my favorites, director-wise, is Tim Burton. I also really admire the work of actors like Sean Penn. He is probably my favorite actor because of his dedication and commitment to roles, and the ability to morph and change himself when he needs to. It's about dedication and commitment and a passion. ~ Colin Morgan

Disney and I were a bad mix. For a year I was probably more depressed than I have ever been in my life. I worked for a great animator, Glenn Kean. He was nice, he was good to me, he's a really strong animator and he helped me. But he also kind of tortured me because I got all the cute fox scenes to draw, and I couldn't draw all those four-legged Disney foxes. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't even fake the Disney style. Mine looked like road kills. ~ Tim Burton

You can learn a lot from children because they see things new every day. That's the beauty of what you want to achieve as an artist - seeing things in a different way. Kids are constantly saying things that are funny and surprising and their observations are just ... you know, they're like little artists themselves. ~ Tim Burton

I absolutely loved working with Tim Burton because he is just a creative, outside of the box thinker. How he does things is fantastic. It is different - weird different - and he does things that are groundbreaking. They are courageous to do and once you do them you are like, 'Wow! That really does work!' ~ Atticus Shaffer

Even if you're doing something that the studio sends you, or something that's based on a book or story, at the end of it all, you try to make whatever it is your own. This is based on my love of horror movies. Everything is based on something, in some way. ~ Tim Burton

I remember early in my career with Disney, which was a very strange time in the company - there were a couple of executives who were very supportive of me and kind of let me do my own thing. ~ Tim Burton

I'm not a big fan of spiders, rats, especially if they're like - I got up one morning on a holiday recently, and there was a centipede in the bed that big. I wasn't very happy about that. ~ Tim Burton

Every day is Halloween, isnt it? For some of us ... ~ Tim Burton

I like the cinema of people like Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton. I am not keen on trying to reproduce reality - for that you should do documentaries. ~ Jean-Pierre Jeunet

I'm being photographed, worrying about my hair - and yet here I am, I've directed a feature film, why do I care about the way I look? Who cares? Does Tim Burton care? Does Joel Coen? ~ Nicole Holofcener

When we were growing up and saw a Ray Harryhausen movie, we were interested in how it was done. But thank God we got to go through the magic of seeing it before we knew how it was done. You were able to get this beautiful, pure, visceral response to something without knowing too much about it. ~ Tim Burton

I never really got nightmares from movies. In fact, I recall my father saying when I was three years old that I would be scared, but I never was. I was much more terrified by my own family and real life, you know? ~ Tim Burton

It's like getting into film - I didn't say early on, 'I'm going to become a filmmaker,' 'I'm going to show my work at MoMA.' When you start to think those things, you're in trouble. ~ Tim Burton

When I was growing up, Dr. Seuss was really my favorite. There was something about the lyrical nature and the simplicity of his work that really hit me. ~ Tim Burton

Ever since the Tim Burton Batman of 1989, it has been de rigueur in movies to focus on the freaky alienation aspect of the superhero's life: This is how talented people make movies for 14-year-olds while retaining their self-respect. ~ David Edelstein

Tim Burton ... as an actor you wait and wish and hope and pray you'll work with him. ~ Casper Van Dien

3D is great, but I just think of it as another tool, like colour or music or sound. It has the potential to add another emotional layer to certain things if you use it right. But it's not the saviour [of the movies], the be all and end all, the reason to do something. ~ Tim Burton

The Boy with Nails in His Eyes put up his aluminum tree. It looked pretty strange because he couldn't really see. ~ Tim Burton

It's always an interesting challenge to see if you can create a character that's got emotion. ~ Tim Burton

I remember being forced to go to Sunday school for a number of years, even though my parents were not religious. No one was really religious; it was just the framework. There was no passion for it. No passion for anything. Just a quiet, kind of floaty, kind of semi-oppressive, blank palette that youre living in. ~ Tim Burton

My dearest friend, if you don't mind, I'd like to join you by your side. Where we could gaze into the stars, and sit together, now and forever. For it is plain as anyone can see, we're simply meant to be. ~ Tim Burton

I am not a dark person and I don't consider myself dark. ~ Tim Burton

Nobody had his [Ed Wood's] style. That's something I try to do in my films. You have your own kind of cryptic messages in there - cryptic things that most people wouldn't understand but are important to you. Things that kind of keep you going through the process. ~ Tim Burton

But then on meeting you, I felt I should be with you always. ~ Tim Burton

The good thing about animation is that you can affect it. If something is not working, then you just fix it. ~ Tim Burton

If you want people to leave you alone then appearing to be crazy is a good thing. If you're walking down the street talking to yourself people tend to give you a wide berth! But I've always been blessed with being easily ignored or avoided. I think maybe it's because people think I look a little crazy. ~ Tim Burton

How long is forever?
Sometimes just one second ~ Lewis Carroll

Anybody who knows me knows I would never read a comic book. ~ Tim Burton

Mayor: How horrible our Christmas will be!
Jack Skellington: *No.*
[the Mayor switches to his upset face]
Jack Skellington: How *jolly*!
Mayor: Oh. How *jolly* our Christmas will be ~ Tim Burton

I've always been more comfortable making my decisions from the subconscious level, or more emotionally, because I find it is more truthful to me; Intellectually, I don't think like that because I get uncomfortable. ~ Tim Burton

Some people get therapy, some people get to make movies. ~ Tim Burton

For me, fantasy has always been a means of exploring reality: it explores the fact that your internal life, your dreams and the weird images and the things that come to you are things that are actually important tools for dealing with real issues. ~ Tim Burton

When you don't have many friends and you don't have a social life you're kind of left looking at things, not doing things. There's a weird freedom in not having people treat you like you're part of society or where you have to fulfill social relationships. ~ Tim Burton

It's great when you know somebody and they keep surprising you. ~ Tim Burton

A lot of things you see as a child remain with you ... you spend a lot of your life trying to recapture the experience. ~ Tim Burton

Stick Boy liked Match Girl,
He liked her a lot.
He liked her cute figure,
he thought she was hot.
But could a flame ever burn
for a match and a stick?
It did quite literally;
he burned up quick. ~ Tim Burton

Unwisely, Santa offered a teddy bear to James, unaware
he had been mauled by a grizzly earlier this year. ~ Tim Burton

We all know interspecies romance is weird. ~ Tim Burton

I think of Ray Harryhausen's work - I knew his name before I knew any actor or director's names. His films had an impact on me very early on, probably even more than Disney. I think that's what made me interested in animation: His work. ~ Tim Burton

I just trust the people involved. Marvel and DC for the last 16 years - is that 90 percent of the time it's incredible top talent. Like, this is what makes it different from the pre-2000 superhero movies. I would say, except Tim Burton and Richard Donner, it was generally, comic book movies were done by guys who weren't that into the material and people who didn't really respect the stuff. But as everything, whether it's Wolverine, X-Men, Avengers, Batman, all these things, it's just been done by top-tier people. I have total confidence that they'll continue that tradition of being great. ~ Mark Millar

They took a baseball bat and whacked open his head. Mummy Boy fell to the ground; he finally was dead. Inside of his head were no candy or prizes, just a few stray beetles of various sizes. ~ Tim Burton

I'm a happy-go-lucky manic-depressive. It does get very deep and dark for me, and it gets scary at times when I feel I can't pull out of it. But I don't consider myself negative-negative. I'm positive-negative. ~ Tim Burton

I went and met with Tim Burton for the role of Batman. But I just couldn't really take it seriously; any man who wears his underpants outside his pants just cannot be taken seriously. ~ Pierce Brosnan

Half the fun is plan to plan ~ Tim Burton

Alone and rejected, Mummy Boy wept,
then went to the cabinet
where the snack food was kept. ~ Tim Burton

I want to be host of 'SNL.' I want to work with Steven Spielberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, J.J. Abrams, Emma Stone and Tim Burton, Sean Penn, Cameron Crowe. I want to work with Adam Sandler - he is so funny - and Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. ~ David Mazouz

Don't worry about how you 'should' draw it. Just draw it the way you see it. ~ Tim Burton

There's something quite exciting when you have a history with somebody and you see them do new and different things. ~ Tim Burton

Good morning starshine the earth says hello.... ~ Tim Burton

When I was a kid I always wanted to be a mad scientist. I don't know ... a regular scientist just was no un. ~ Tim Burton

I love Michael Keaton. I think he's awesome - he's such an awesome actor - like the 'Beetlejuice' films. I just love that Tim Burton stuff. ~ Matt Ryan

When it comes to art and science, people don't like a lot of either. Instead of being open to it, they're closed off about it. ~ Tim Burton

If you've ever had that feeling of loneliness, of being an outsider, it never quite leaves you. You can be happy or successful or whatever, but that thing still stays within you. ~ Tim Burton

I've worked with Tim Burton five times, and it's just like being part of a family; life doesn't get much better than that. ~ Christopher Lee

I've always liked fairy tale and spectacle. I wouldn't say I was a fantasy fan, but anything beyond reality I've always found exciting - the work of David Lynch, the work of Tim Burton. But for me, I also love those things that are absolutely about human relationships. ~ Gwendoline Christie

It's very nice to have someone that you can have a completely abstract conversation with and leave the room, feel like everything's fine, and then realize that if you pick it apart, you have absolutely no idea what either of you said. ~ Tim Burton

I did some sports. It was a bit frustrating. I wasn't the greatest sports person. ~ Tim Burton

Anybody with artistic ambitions is always trying to reconnect with the way they saw things as a child. ~ Tim Burton

I really want to work with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. ~ Marisol Nichols

Tim Burton is underrated. I loved Big Fish, loved that movie, think it's the best movie of the year, hands down. Really impressed with that. ~ David Zucker

Robot Boy
Mr. an Mrs. Smith had a wonderful life.
They were a normal, happy husband and wife.
One day they got news that made Mr. Smith glad.
Mrs. Smith would would be a mom
which would make him the dad!
But something was wrong with their bundle of joy.
It wasn't human at all,
it was a robot boy!
He wasn't warm and cuddly
and he didn't have skin.
Instead there was a cold, thin layer of tin.
There were wires and tubes sticking out of his head.
He just lay there and stared,
not living or dead.

The only time he seemed alive at all
was with a long extension cord
plugged into the wall.

Mr. Smith yelled at the doctor,
"What have you done to my boy?
He's not flesh and blood,
he's aluminum alloy!"

The doctor said gently,
"What I'm going to say
will sound pretty wild.
But you're not the father
of this strange looking child.
You see, there still is some question
about the child's gender,
but we think that its father
is a microwave blender."

The Smith's lives were now filled
with misery and strife.
Mrs. Smith hated her husband,
and he hated his wife.
He never forgave her unholy alliance:
a sexual encounter
with a kitchen appliance.

And Robot Boy
grew to be a young man.

Though he was often mistaken
for a garbage can. ~ Tim Burton

My parents suffered from that ideal of a perfect nuclear family. They found that a difficult pressure, I think. ~ Tim Burton

I don't know what it was, maybe the movie theaters in my immediate surrounding neighbourhood in Burbank, but I never saw what would be considered A movies. ~ Tim Burton

It's good as an artist to always remember to see things in a new, weird way. ~ Tim Burton

Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams? ~ Tim Burton

I am the shadow on the moon at night/Filling your dreams to the brim with fright. ~ Tim Burton

I've always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people but they'd still say I'm a dark personality. ~ Tim Burton

Get away from meeeee!" Edgar -Frankiewinnie ~ Tim Burton

One person's craziness is another person's reality. ~ Tim Burton

You don't know whether chimps are going to kill you or kiss you. They're very open on some levels and much more evil in a certain way. ~ Tim Burton

Jack Nicholson is a textbook actor who's very intuitive. He is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real. ~ Tim Burton

I started to do stop-motion when I was a kid. You take a Super 8 and make some models, and move, click, move, click. All that. I love all forms of animation, but there is something unique and special to stop-motion: it's more real and the set is lit like a set. But I think it's also a kind of lonely and dark thing to want to do. ~ Tim Burton

I don't have a dog, because I travel too much. I don't want to just leave it abandoned. ~ Tim Burton

My kid is a product of the fast computer lifestyle. ~ Tim Burton

A bottle that reads, "Drink me." A tea party, with a dormouse, a March Hare, and of course, one Mad Hatter. A red queen, with as much a fondness for tarts as for saying, "Off with their heads!" When we think of Alice and her adventures in wonderland, we often think of these amazing (and amusing) elements. Although today, your vision of Alice in Wonderland probably includes Johnny Depp and a certain visual aesthetic by Tim Burton, it's difficult not to think of the Alice stories without thinking about the food that appears within the pages of the story. ~ Lewis Carroll

For some of us, Halloween is everyday. ~ Tim Burton

Tim also has enough confidence so that it always looks like a Tim Burton film, but it really is collaborative. You're allowed to do it your way but of course he's always going to choose his way. ~ Helena Bonham Carter

Because the world of this film begins and ends in the imagination of Tim Burton, you're not seeing a movie that's been shot on locations that you've seen a million times. Because this world has no rules, you're seeing so many different and separate brushstrokes and colors and characterizations somehow getting combined through Tim. ~ Anne Hathaway

[Childbirth] is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It's like an 'Alien' movie. I started crying, it was so emotional ... I was there in the room but I wasn't planning on doing much. But then I see this blue pinhead come out and I think I said to the nurse, 'What the hell is that?' And then it turns into this round red thing in seconds. It's just shocking. ~ Tim Burton

Working with Tim Burton is like a psychic experience -Tim waves his hands and says, 'I don't know,' and you go home and do it. He's the most articulate nonverbal person in the world. He doesn't say a word, and you know exactly what it means. ~ Caroline Thompson

If I touch a burning candle
I can feel no pain
If you cut me with a knife
It's still the same
And I know her heart is beating
And I know that I am dead
Yet the pain here that I feel
Try and tell me it's not real
And it seems I still have a tear to shed ~ Tim Burton

I don't really dream, I space out during the day - that's one of my problems wonder off when someone's talking to me. I can't remember any dreams in my life. There's so much strange in real life that it often seems like a dream. ~ Tim Burton