Richard Linklater Quotes & Sayings

Yes, but Hollywood is the strangest place in that they'll torpedo their own film to prove an emotional point. — Richard Linklater

... [Thomas Wolfe] says that we are the sum of all the moments of our lives, and that, uh, anybody who sits down to write is gonna use the clay of their own life, that you can't avoid that. — Richard Linklater

I've never been a guy who had more than a toe in Hollywood anyway, so my toe is more easily lopped off than most. — Richard Linklater

I think there are more films being made, but there are probably less outlets for them and distributors. — Richard Linklater

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

It's a tiny bestseller, but, officially yes. But, hey, most people haven't read Moby-Dick, so why the hell should they read my book? — Richard Linklater

I'm living in this world. I'm what, a slacker? A "twentysomething"? I'm in the margins. I'm not building a wall but making a brick. Okay, here I am, a tired inheritor of the Me generation, floating from school to street to bookstore to movie theater with a certain uncertainty. I'm in that white space where consumer terror meets irony and pessimism, where Scooby Doo and Dr. Faustus hold equal sway over the mind, where the Butthole Surfers provide the background volume, where we choose what is not obvious over what is easy. It goes on ... like TV channel-cruising, no plot, no tragic flaws, no resolution, just mastering the moment, pushing forward, full of sound and fury, full of life signifying everything on any given day ... — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

I want to make a film about a factory worker. — Richard Linklater

Dream is destiny. — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

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

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

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

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. — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

I did The Newton Boys and during the whole process of making the film, I may have spent a week in Los Angeles. — Richard Linklater

I think I'm always so much more happy with books and movies and stuff. I think I get more excited about well-done representations of life than life itself.
- Celine — Richard Linklater

Even being alone it's better than sitting next to your lover and feeling lonely. - Celine — Richard Linklater

It's tough, man. Unless it's a tentpole, sequel, remake, or over-the-top comedy, that's all the studios are even doing. They've kind of admitted they're not in the business of doing anything else. The slightest level of irony or intelligence and, boom, you're out of the league, you're done. — Richard Linklater

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

At some point, you're no longer growing up, you're aging. But no one can pinpoint that moment exactly. — Richard Linklater

I think I got really lucky with Slacker. That was a film that probably shouldn't have been seen. — Richard Linklater

You know, that's what I hate: when you start talking like this, like you just pull in these things from the shit you read, and you haven't thought it out for yourself, no bearing on the world around us, and totally unoriginal. — Richard Linklater

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

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

It's kinda like D.H. Lawrence had this idea of two people meeting on a road, and instead of just passing and glancing away, they decide to accept what he calls the confrontation between their souls. It's like freeing the brave, reckless gods within us all. — Richard Linklater

We all give ourselves a lot of leeway, but we want consistency from other people. — Richard Linklater

See. The whole concept of love is
much more complex. Love's like God
or something: It's everywhere ... I
see it, I feel it, but I don't know
if another person is going to hand
it to me. — Richard Linklater

You are both stars, don't forget.
When the stars exploded billions of
years ago, they formed everything
that is this world. The moon, the
trees, everything we know is
stardust. So don't forget. You
are stardust.
- ROSE PEDDLER — Richard Linklater

If you establish rules and play by them, the audience will buy in. — Richard Linklater

I do find myself at the moment, due to the success of School of Rock, to be on people's radar a little. — Richard Linklater

Something about Texas I'm not proud of is that our state murdered 37 people last year alone. — Richard Linklater

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

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. — Richard Linklater

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

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. — Richard Linklater

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

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

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

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

I see the people that do the real work, and what in a way is really sad is that the people that are often the most giving, hardworking, and capable of making this world better don't really have the ambition and ego to be a leader - they don't see any interest in the rewards, they don't care if their names ever appear in the press, they actually enjoy the process of helping others, they are truly in the moment. — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

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

There are so many great artists, I think, who kind of suffer from being icons, legends, acknowledged masters. — Richard Linklater

It has to be very tight to seem loose. — Richard Linklater

I lost a year or two in there, trying to get films financed that I didn't know would never get financing. — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

Hollywood has a way of sucking the world's talent to it. — Richard Linklater

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

The truth will only be told over a career. — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

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

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

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

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. — Richard Linklater

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. — Richard Linklater

No one really
knows anyone. That's the thing
about relationships - people are
always saying, "I want to know you,
I want to know who you are." But
it is so hard for anyone to even
know themselves. Who I am is
always changing, so how can anyone
else share in that? — Richard Linklater

When you're trying to get laid, everything's great, but once you've been with someone eight years and the future is not finite, you have time to sit and really examine every little thing that irritates you. — Richard Linklater

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

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

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. — Richard Linklater

I think you get in trouble if you make experimental big studio films. — Richard Linklater

I'm lucky that I get to jump around, do a big-budget comedy and then a smaller film. I don't even make a big distinction between them. No one believes this, but it's the same. I'm the same person, trying to make it work. I just love being on a movie set. I like making movies. — Richard Linklater