Kubrick Quotes

Stanley Kubrick was one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century. Kubrick had a meticulous approach to directing and often took multiple years to complete films. His films include 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket and The Shining.

• 1956: The Killing
• 1957: Paths of Glory
• 1960: Spartacus
• 1962: Lolita
• 1964: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• 1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey
• 1971: A Clockwork Orange
• 1975: Barry Lyndon
• 1980: The Shining
• 1987: Full Metal Jacket
• 1999: Eyes Wide Shut

• 1948-1951: Married to Toba Metz
• 1954-1957: Married to Ruth Sobotka
• 1958-1999: Married to Christian Harlan

• Wikiquote: Stanley Kubrick
  • "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."

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

• • "The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed."

• • "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. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space?"

• • "I would not think of quarreling with your interpretation nor offering any other, as I have found it always the best policy to allow the film to speak for itself."

• • "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."

• • "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."

• • "One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film."

• BrainyQuote: Stanley Kubrick Quotes
  • "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."

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

• • "It's a mistake to confuse pity with love."

• • "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."

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

• • "You're an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot."

• ThinkExist.com: Stanley Kubrick Quotes
  • "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."

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

• • "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."

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

• • "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. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker."

• • "The greatest nations have all acted like gangsters and the smallest like prostitutes."