55+ Stanley Kubrick Quotes That Define His Legacy

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

A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

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.

I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don’t want.

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.

Never say no to an idea – you never know how that idea will ignite another idea.

However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

Any time you take a chance you better be sure the rewards are worth the risk because they can put you away just as fast for a ten-dollar heist as they can for a million-dollar job.

If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.

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.

Regret isn’t going to get me anywhere. It’s like being obsessed with something. It doesn’t bring you anywhere.

One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man makes a film.

I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don’t want.

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

Nothing is as dangerous as a sure thing.

Everything has already been done. every story has been told every scene has been shot. it’s our job to do it better.

A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

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

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.

The dead know only one thing, it is better to be alive.

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.

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

It’s a mistake to confuse pity with love.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

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

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.

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.

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

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.

The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale.

You’re an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.

I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, ‘don’t try to fly too high,’ or whether it might also be thought of as ‘forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

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.

When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.

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.

The book can also be a hat.

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.

Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good and it trains you to think objectively when you’re in trouble.

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent.

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

A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of filmmaking. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit.

The feel of the experience is the important thing, not the ability to verbalize or analyze it.

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

How could we possibly appreciate the Mona Lisa if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: ‘The lady is smiling because she is hiding a secret from her lover.’ This would shackle the viewer to reality, and I don’t want this to happen in 2001.

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

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.

The best education in film is to make one.

Take a stress pill and think things over– HAL in 2001.

Everything has already been done. every story has been told every scene has been shot. it’s our job to do it better.

Everybody has their black moments.

You know, Michael, it’s not absolutely true in every case that nobody likes a smart ass.

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

I have a wife, three children, three dogs, seven cats. I’m not a Franz Kafka, sitting alone and suffering.

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.

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.

Bad films gave me the courage to try making a movie.

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.

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.

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