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.
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 first really important book I read about filmmaking was The Film Technique by Pudovkin. This was some time before I had ever touched a movie camera and it opened my eyes to cutting and montage.
The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
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 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.
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.
