“The only way to do something interesting is not care if you fail.” IfsWayCareInterestingFailingSomething Interesting Author:Charlie Kaufman
“The conventional wisdom is - people say this all the time - you should only write something when you're far enough away from it that you can have a perspective. But that's not true. That's a story that you're telling. The truth of it is here, right now. It's the only truth that we ever know. And I'm interested in that truth and the confusion being part of the experience and sorting it your way through and figuring it out.” PeopleKnowsWayShouldWritingEnoughStoriesPerspectiveRight NowConfusionTelling The TruthConventionalConventional WisdomSortingFiguring It Author:Charlie Kaufman
“I choose to write characters from the inside because I feel like that's the way I'm gonna get the most honest version of them.” WayFeelsWritingCharacterHonestVersions Author:Charlie Kaufman
“I don't think the world objectively exists the way we think it exists. There's a constant sort of storytelling process.” ThinkingWorldWayProcessConstantStorytelling Author:Charlie Kaufman
“We're all subjective beings and trapped in our own realities and our own biographical stories and physical bodies and our histories - and that's the only way we can experience the world.” WorldWayStoriesBodyRealityTrappedSubjectivePhysical Body Author:Charlie Kaufman
“And then to see the whole movie, you're pretty much waiting until the end of production. And the major lifting in terms of editing and all that stuff is done before you shoot the movie. That's an unusual way to work.” WayEndsDoneWholeStuffWaitingTermMajorsProductionsUnusualEditingLiftingYou Re Pretty Author:Charlie Kaufman
“You get a kind of surreal feeling and also it allows you to focus on the things we want you to focus on in a new way - the stuff that's very small and mundane that happens in a person's life when they're in a hotel room. There's more interest because you're seeing a puppet do things that you're very familiar with that you might not notice if it was a human doing it.” IfsWayWantHumansKindPersonsFeelingsMightHappensStuffInterestRoomsFocusSeeingFamiliarHotelNew WaysSurrealMundanePuppetsHotel Rooms Author:Charlie Kaufman
“I think everything I do is based on my experience in the world in one way or another.” ThinkingWorldWayOne Way Author:Charlie Kaufman
“People will say things after a screening that it affects them in a certain way, which is why I don't like to explain what certain things are about. I want them to have that. It limits people's ability to understand something if I say it's "about this." That's happened to us a bunch on this.” PeopleIfsWayWantCertainAbilityHappenedLimitsBunchScreening Author:Charlie Kaufman
“Story ideas, but it's also musing on stuff that I'm thinking about. This leads me to this and this leads me to this. They're kind of random and haphazard. Often I can't find anything. Somehow, by doing that, even though I don't necessarily refer to them in a specific way, I have some sort of architecture in my head.” ThinkingWayKindI CanIdeasStoriesStuffArchitectureLeading MeMusingsHaphazard Author:Charlie Kaufman
“My point of view comes more from the literature I've read and the comedy of the era. When I was a kid, coming across National Lampoon Magazine, that was a big thing. I suddenly felt like there were other people that felt the way I did, and there was a way of expressing and communicating this worldview.” PeopleWayBigsKidsLiteratureFeltViewsComedyCommunicatePoint Of ViewMagazinesErasBig ThingsWorldviewNational Lampoon Author:Charlie Kaufman
“I think that people have expectations of themselves and other people that are based on these fictions that are presented to them as the way human life and relationships could be, in some sort of weird, ideal world, but they never are. So you're constantly being shown this garbage and you can't get there.” PeopleThinkingWorldWayHumansFictionExpectationsIdealsHuman LifeGarbageIdeal World Author:Charlie Kaufman
“There's no way to approach anything in an objective way. We're completely subjective; our view of the world is completely controlled by who we are as human beings, as men or women, by our age, our history, our profession, by the state of the world.” MenWorldWayHumansStatesAgeHuman BeingsViewsApproachProfessionObjectivesWho We AreBirthdayControlledSubjective60th Birthday Author:Charlie Kaufman
“Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.” KnowsWayWritingKnow HowWritten Author:Charlie Kaufman
“We try to organize the world, which isn't organized the way our brains want to organize it. We tell stories about the people in our lives, we project ideas onto them. We project relationships with people, we make our lives into stories. I don't think we can avoid doing that.” PeopleThinkingWorldWayWantTryingIdeasStoriesBrainOur LivesProjectsOrganizedOrganizePeople In Our Lives Author:Charlie Kaufman
“I think of myself as a guy who tries to write screenplays and now has tried to direct one. Anything more than that is meaningless and it gets in the way of being a real human being.” ThinkingWayWritingTryingHumansRealGuyHuman BeingsDirectMeaninglessScreenplaysReal Human Author:Charlie Kaufman
“In a lot of movies, especially big studio ones, they're not constructed in any other way than to get people to like them and then tell their friends. It's a product.” PeopleWayBigsProductsStudios Author:Charlie Kaufman
“There really is only one ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps going and gets complicated and there's loss. Everything involves loss; every relationship ends in one way or another.” WayHumansEndsStoriesLossComplicatedOne WayHuman LifeKeep GoingRelationships Ending Author:Charlie Kaufman
“We're all one thing, like cells in a body. 'Cept we can't see the body. The way fish can't see the ocean. And so we envy each other. Hurt each other. Hate each other. How silly is that? A heart cell hating a lung cell.” WayHeartBodyHateHurtOne ThingOceanFishesEnvySillyCellsLungs Author:Charlie Kaufman
“The way I work is not the way that you work, and the whole point of any creative act is that. What I have to offer is me, what you have to offer is you, and if you offer yourself with authenticity and generosity I will be moved.” IfsWayWholeCreativeOffersMovedAuthenticityGenerosity Author:Charlie Kaufman
“It occurred to me that every work of art is a synecdoche, there's no way around it. Every creative work that someone does can only represent an aspect of the whole of something. I can't think of an exception to that.” ThinkingWayDoeArtI CanWholeCreativeArt IsAspectExceptionWorks Of ArtCreative Work Author:Charlie Kaufman
“The way I write is very much without kind of a goal. I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive.” KnowsWayWritingKindCharacterGoalAliveScreenplays Author:Charlie Kaufman
“I have a personality that tends to be somewhat compulsive, and I do tend to think in a circular way. I dwell on the same things over and over and I try to figure out different ways of looking at the same issue.” ThinkingWayTryingDifferentIssuesFiguresPersonalityDifferent Ways Author:Charlie Kaufman
“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.” PeopleWayWantGivingArtistHonestGenerous Author:Charlie Kaufman
“If you create something that is asking for people to respond as they're going to respond, you have to allow them to respond as they're going to respond. Some of the people are going to be uninterested and some people are going to be mad for some reason, which is their business. That's just the way the world is.” PeopleIfsWorldWayReasonAskingMadUninterested Author:Charlie Kaufman
