Charlie Kaufman Quotes & Sayings

“As a writer, or as a filmmaker, you have to present yourself, and part of what yourself is is what you're interested in, or what you think is funny, or what you think is sad, or what you think is horrible.”

“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.”

“I do like escapism. I like going to the movies on a Friday night and seeing something fun.”

“You are what you love. Not what loves you.”

“I do have, at different times, a certain kind of self-consciousness in the world, an insecurity.”

“So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.”

“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.”

“I hate a movie that will end by telling you that the first thing you should do is learn to love yourself. That is so insulting and condescending, and so meaningless. My characters don't learn to love each other or themselves.”

“I think generally I'm kind of interested in subjective experience, what goes on inside someone's head, that being all they really know of the world.”

“Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.”