Top 120 Charlie Kaufman Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I think directing and writing are very different jobs. Obviously, directing is a more social and managerial job. The other thing about directing is that it’s a very, very pragmatic job, and writing isn’t.”

— Charlie Kaufman

102. “I can never watch anything I’ve been involved in, because I know it, and I know what the making of it was like, and I know what’s been cut out and changed. I just know it.”

— Charlie Kaufman

103. “The difference between a movie and a play is that the production you end up with is the production. If a movie that I spent time on turns out to be crap, it’s never going to be made again.”

— Charlie Kaufman

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

— Charlie Kaufman

105. “And so not only do you have to make that work, you can’t really start putting the thing together in any form because some of the shots are very short and obviously many of them take so long, you’re waiting months and months and months before you can see if it’s going to be working emotionally.”

— Charlie Kaufman

106. “I think if something resonates, even if it’s surreal, it’s because it is relatable and I think that that’s a core issue for me.”

— Charlie Kaufman

107. “I have a tendency to hire people who tend to be unattractive to the studios. Maybe this is a bad idea.”

— Charlie Kaufman

108. “In a lot of movies, especially big studio ones, they’re not constructed in any other way than to get people to like them and then tell their friends. It’s a product.”

— Charlie Kaufman

109. “I wanted to deal with someone’s idea of their relationship.”

— Charlie Kaufman

110. “I think of myself as a guy who tries to write screenplays and now has tried to direct one. Anything more than that is meaningless and it gets in the way of being a real human being.”

— Charlie Kaufman

111. “I think I’ve had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.”

— Charlie Kaufman

112. “I like titles that are a little difficult, because it’s kind of counterintuitive.”

— Charlie Kaufman

113. “I have ideas written down some places, but usually I can’t find them. I’m not very organized.”

— Charlie Kaufman

114. “I don’t subscribe to anything. I sit there and I try to think about what seems honest to me.”

— Charlie Kaufman

115. “People ask me all the time, “What are your influences? Are you trying to do Beckett?” It’s like, “No, I’m trying to do me.” Whatever that is. I don’t know what that is, but that’s the basis. I’m trying to be true and I’m trying to be honest.”

— Charlie Kaufman

116. “I like actors – I used to be one.”

— Charlie Kaufman

117. “Before you start production, you have characters you have created without actors in mind, then all of a sudden you’ve got actors. They bring an enormous amount in creating these characters, and creating the dynamics between the characters that you’ve written.”

— Charlie Kaufman

118. “I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal.”

— Charlie Kaufman

119. “I want to do my own thing, and I’m trying to get closer to realizing that as a filmmaker.”

— Charlie Kaufman

120. “I do have some theatrical background. I’ve written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don’t read is screenplays.”

— Charlie Kaufman

121. “I try to present something that is true so I don’t further destroy the world with my contribution to it.”

— Charlie Kaufman

122. “Would that I could be a gay man. I would like myself better. But I am the most heterosexual of all my many acquaintances.”

— Charlie Kaufman

123. “Compare this to any mess written by Charlie Kaufman.”

— Charlie Kaufman

124. “There are rumors of rats down here as big as German shepherds, the people not the dogs.”

— Charlie Kaufman

125. “I tend to not only read reviews, but also every little stupid thing online. It’s a very bad idea, and there’s a lot of angry people in the world. And it’s weird to absorb all that weirdness.”

— Charlie Kaufman

126. “I guess the truth is I crave humiliation. What is ironic or at least curious is that in my actual life, humiliation is the thing I most fear and I most experience. Yet I am not happy. Why?”

— Charlie Kaufman

127. “I graduated from college in 1980.”

— Charlie Kaufman

128. “A stab wound less than three millimeters deep is legal and even encouraged. We cannot help you unless a crime has been committed. Fourteen millimeters or more.”

— Charlie Kaufman

129. “There are so many people who are making movies now who can’t get any kind of distribution, so the market seems like it’s flooded.”

— Charlie Kaufman

130. “I wanted to do something that I don’t know how to do, and offer you the experience of watching someone fumble, because I think maybe that’s what art should offer. An opportunity to recognise our common humanity and vulnerability.”

— Charlie Kaufman

131. “Boredom is the domain of the dullard.”

— Charlie Kaufman

132. “The only moment that we exist is the moment we inhabit.”

— Charlie Kaufman

133. “Nothing does anything for me anymore.”

— Charlie Kaufman

134. “I think dreams are metaphors. Everything you do in writing is metaphorical. So it seems like the same arena to me.”

— Charlie Kaufman