Richard Linklater Quotes

Before Sunrise did very well internationally. It made as much in Italy and Korea as it did here.

I want to make a film about a factory worker.

Being alone is better than sitting next to a lover and feeling lonely.

It's luck that one thing works out and one doesn't, it's sort of happenstance.

There are a million ideas in a world of stories. Humans are storytelling animals. Everything's a story, everyone's got stories, we're perceiving stories, we're interested in stories. So to me, the big nut to crack is to how to tell a story, what's the right way to tell a particular story.

I'd like to quit thinking of the present as some minor insignificant preamble to something else.

Memory is a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past.

The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything.

I can't help but think that at the end of your life, when you look back, there'll be a tone. And that tone will come from the essence of how you live your day to day what you did in that between time because that is really your life.

I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.

I think maybe making films is something innate you can't really teach to begin with.

The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure, while always arriving.

The rules of parenting have changed. By the modern definition, we were a generation of neglected children.

Filmmakers are going to make films, just like painters are going to paint.

Slackers might look like the left-behinds of society, but they are actually one step ahead, rejecting most of society and the social hierarchy before it rejects them. The dictionary defines slackers as people who evade duties and responsibilities. A more modern notion would be people who are ultimately being responsible to themselves and not wasting their time in a realm of activity that has nothing to do with who they are or what they might be ultimately striving for.

As we know from our government, the more power you have, the more of a bureaucrat you are, and the more ego you have invested in being right, the greater the odds are that you will never change your opinion.

I've always liked the minds of criminals, they seem similar to artists.

It's disappointing to see films become pure entertainment, so that it's not an art form.

I didn't have any set idea of what kind of filmmaker I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to tell stories that meant something to me, but I never said I was going to be the weird, avant-garde guy.

It's hard to see a film one time and really "get it," and write fully and intelligently about it. That's a review. That's not film criticism.

No one is asking what happened to all the homeless. No one cares, because it's easier to get on the subway and not be accosted.

I've always been most interested in the politics of everyday life: your relation to whatever you're doing, or what your ambitions are, where you live, where you find yourself in the social hierarchy.

Yeah, a memory's never finished, if you really think about it.

In a sea of stories, find the right one to tell, and the right way to tell it.

I'm so happy and relieved for the indie spirited film world because ... I don't even know if it's indie, it's just alternative cinema that's just different than what the studios are doing and it's a big variety in that category. Everyone always is complaining about the film industry but I think it's important to acknowledge when it's actually a pretty good time when that comes back around. I'd be remiss not to say, "Hey, it's a pretty good era right now for these reasons," and maybe that doesn't last or maybe it does, but I will acknowledge it.

Everything that you could think about in life, or experience, or be interested in, theoretically should be expressed or dealt with in cinema. But the way typical narratives are set up, there's no room for philosophy, because it's just digressive material. It's not advancing the plot, so there's no place for it. It's the kind of stuff you would cut out, and that you shouldn't have put in there to begin with.

Editing rooms are kind of, by definition, a bubble of you and the editor and what you're thinking. It's a truth-telling thing to watch it through someone else's eyes, is to get another level of real with your material. Like, "Maybe that's not that funny. Maybe that's not as interesting. Maybe that's redundant to something else. Maybe we can cut down." I don't know. It's a brutal, honest process. You've got to be pretty - You can't be sentimental. You have to be. It's a cold process. You can't be nostalgic. You have to make those tough decisions.

Well, you have to keep your faith in the fact that there are a lot of intelligent people who are actively looking for something interesting, people who have been disappointed so many times.

Whatever story you want to tell, tell it at the right size.

Normally my process is to sit in a room and read a script and talk about it and ask questions and just create a dialogue. That goes all the way through shooting. All kinds of thoughts and ideas can find their way in there. As long as you're all on - We're just all trying to tell the story so my job as a director is just to find out what this film wants to be based on, it's just words on a page at some point but then it just needs to go to some level of believable storytelling. I'm discovering the film as I make it, to some degree.

Your friends are really an extension of your vision of the world. It's kind of a physical manifestation of how you feel. Like your soul.

I worked offshore as an oil worker for a couple of years.

The worst thing is that you used to be able to show interesting films on campuses. Those places are all gone.

I always sensed instinctively from the earliest age that I was being lied to.

You make a film and you can't really pick the way it's put to the public. You control the content, but the way it's marketed, or the poster, or what they're telling the public about the film, it's beyond you. Some people don't even see them, because they think they already know it. That can be frustrating, when something you've done is marketed in a way you think is antithetical to what it is.

As a teenager, I wanted to write novels. By college, it was theater, plays, and then, shortly, it was film.

To those humans in whom I have faith; I wish suffering, being forsaken, sickness, maltreatment, humiliation. I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, and the misery of the vanquished. I have no pity for them because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures' . . . Remember, the passion for destruction is also a creative passion.

If we're all going to die, shouldn't we be enjoying ourselves now?

If the animators could hide something so secretly that I could watch it numerous times, both on the computer and on the screen, and not pick up on it, then it deserves to be in the movie. But if they had more overt things, I'd often tell them to cut it out. In general, as long as they captured the spirit of the character, then they're fine. But sometimes it took a while, and we had to replace a lot of animators.

People think drama drives story, but I think the comedy is really the heart and soul.

Monogamy, monotony. There's only a couple of letters...

I always think that I’m still this 13-year old boy that doesn’t really know how to be an adult, pretending to live my life, taking notes for when I’ll really have to do it.

I'd be fine to make movies and have them never come out. But you have to deal with the business side. You can't get too emotionally invested, because again, you've got no control. There's going to be some huge film out that everyone goes to, and it probably won't be mine.

It's hard to see a film one time and really "get it," and write fully and intelligently about it. That's a review. That's not film criticism. And there's so many expectations involved, too. You're going in to see the latest Martin Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick film, you really have high hopes, and you can't help but find that it's not exactly what you had in your head going in. Until you can watch it again, you can't accept the work for what it intends to be. It takes at least a second viewing.

I'd be fine if there weren't film festivals, and you just made your films and didn't have to do anything from that point on. That would be really great, wouldn't it? I don't know. I'm in kind of an aloof time, where I'm not taking anything too seriously.

Everyone is encouraged to see their lives, the world through the eyes of the rich.

That's the history of art - you have to consider yourself fortunate if you ever get acknowledged. If you have a critical success that's also a financial success and that you feel good about... If things line up, that's pretty rare.

I have a lot of films that I haven't gotten made, and that continues to trouble me. But someday, some way or another, I think I will. It's all about timing. There's a moment when you're hot and studios will make your next film, and then there's a moment when you're really cold, and they couldn't care less what you want to do next. That's when you have to recede and make lower-budgeted films.

When you're in love, you're asking someone else to fulfill all your unfulfilled needs, to make you whole, and to make you feel good about everything, and no one can do that.

All the women are going around saying, "Oh, we're just friends, we're just friends," but the guy's going, "Yeah, we're friends, but as soon as she breaks up with her boyfriend, I'm hoping to move in."