Stanley Kubrick Quotes
-
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.
-
I've never achieved spectacular success with a film. My reputation has grown slowly. I suppose you could say that I'm a successful filmmaker-in that a number of people speak well of me. But none of my films have received unanimously positive reviews, and none have done blockbuster business.
-
One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film.
-
You have not yet learned that in this life you have to be like everyone else: the perfect mediocrity--no better, no worse. Individuality is a monster and it must be strangled in its cradle to make our friends feel comfortable.
-
Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines things.
-
I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit.
-
If Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda had a baby, it would be Matthew Modine.
-
Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.
-
Shooting a movie is the worst milieu for creative work ever devised by man.
-
I'm a slave to my imagination in terms of making narrative films.
-
The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale: to an observer in the Andromeda nebula, the sign of our extinction would be no more than a match flaring for a second in the heavens: and if that match does blaze in the darkness there will be none to mourn a race that used a power that could have lit a beacon in the stars to light its funeral pyre. The choice is ours.
-
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.
-
Have you ever had a single moment's thought about my responsibilities?
-
Like the man said, can happiness buy money?
-
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.
-
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
-
You're an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.
-
Here's to five miserable months on the wagon and the irreparable harm that it's caused me.
-
The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.
-
I've got a peculiar weakness for criminals and artists. Neither takes life as it is. Any tragic story has to be in conflict with things as they are.
-
Private Joker is silly and he's ignorant but he's got guts and guts is enough.
-
I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, Mr. President, but I do say not more than ten to twenty million dead depending upon the breaks.
-
I didn't want murder. It's all gone wrong.
-
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.