Tim Burton Quotes & Sayings

They took a baseball bat and whacked open his head. Mummy Boy fell to the ground; he finally was dead. Inside of his head were no candy or prizes, just a few stray beetles of various sizes. — Tim Burton

If you've ever had that feeling of loneliness, of being an outsider, it never quite leaves you. You can be happy or successful or whatever, but that thing still stays within you. — Tim Burton

The Girl With Many Eyes One day in the park I had quite a surprise. I met a girl who had many eyes. She was really quite pretty (and also quite shocking!) and I noticed she had a mouth, so we ended up talking. We talked about flowers, and her poetry classes, and the problems she'd have if she ever wore glasses. It's great to know a girl who has so many eyes, but you really get wet when she breaks down and cries. — Tim Burton

The Boy with Nails in His Eyes put up his aluminum tree. It looked pretty strange because he couldn't really see. — Tim Burton

I'm gonna go live in a cave, just completely live in my interior world. — Tim Burton

It's really nice to work with people who understand and really love the artistry of building sets, it's great. — Tim Burton

Mr. Smith yelled at the doctor, What have you done to my boy? He's not flesh and blood, he's aluminum alloy! The doctor said gently, What I'm going to say will sound pretty wild. But you're not the father of this strange looking child. You see, there still is some question about the child's gender, but we think that its father is a microwave blender. — Tim Burton

When it comes to art and science, people don't like a lot of either. Instead of being open to it, they're closed off about it. — Tim Burton

I don't really dream, I space out during the day - that's one of my problems wonder off when someone's talking to me. I can't remember any dreams in my life. There's so much strange in real life that it often seems like a dream. — Tim Burton

People told me I couldn't kill Nicholson, so I cast him in two roles and killed him off twice. — Tim Burton

When you don't have many friends and you don't have a social life you're kind of left looking at things, not doing things. There's a weird freedom in not having people treat you like you're part of society or where you have to fulfill social relationships. — Tim Burton

I think of Ray Harryhausen's work - I knew his name before I knew any actor or director's names. His films had an impact on me very early on, probably even more than Disney. I think that's what made me interested in animation: His work. — Tim Burton

My diagnosis," he said
"for better or worse,
is that your son is the result
of an old pharaoh's curse. — Tim Burton

When I was a kid I always wanted to be a mad scientist. I don't know ... a regular scientist just was no un. — Tim Burton

The great thing about visual horror films is there's real potential for strong, beautiful imagery. It's the one genre that really lends itself to creating strong images. And I've always loved that idea of windmills - your mind aimlessly spinning. — Tim Burton

When I was growing up, Dr. Seuss was really my favorite. There was something about the lyrical nature and the simplicity of his work that really hit me. — Tim Burton

I wouldn't know a good script if it bit me in the face. — Tim Burton

I don't look at my films or my old drawings much, so that was an interesting way to kind of reconnect with myself a bit. — Tim Burton

But she knows she has a curse on her,
a curse she cannot win.
For if someone gets too close to her,
the pins stick further in. — Tim Burton

I'm not a big fan of spiders, rats, especially if they're like - I got up one morning on a holiday recently, and there was a centipede in the bed that big. I wasn't very happy about that. — Tim Burton

I don't have a dog, because I travel too much. I don't want to just leave it abandoned. — Tim Burton

If I had a choice about going to a meeting at a studio or changing a nappy, I'd choose the nappy. — Tim Burton

I always felt that Hollywood has a way of making you feel outside. — Tim Burton

If you ever had a pet, with me it was a dog, with that sort of unconditional love that only dogs can give, people can't do that; that sort of thing where it's very powerful, it's kind of your first love and your first real relationship, and usually your first experience with death. — Tim Burton

3D is great, but I just think of it as another tool, like colour or music or sound. It has the potential to add another emotional layer to certain things if you use it right. But it's not the saviour [of the movies], the be all and end all, the reason to do something. — Tim Burton

My parents suffered from that ideal of a perfect nuclear family. They found that a difficult pressure, I think. — Tim Burton

I get so tired of people saying, 'Oh, you only make fantasy films and this and that', and I'm like, 'Well no, fantasy is reality', that's what Lewis Carroll showed in his work. — Tim Burton

Alone and rejected, Mummy Boy wept,
then went to the cabinet
where the snack food was kept. — Tim Burton

Jack Nicholson is a textbook actor who's very intuitive. He is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real. — Tim Burton

Some people get therapy, some people get to make movies. — Tim Burton

You can learn a lot from children because they see things new every day. That's the beauty of what you want to achieve as an artist - seeing things in a different way. Kids are constantly saying things that are funny and surprising and their observations are just ... you know, they're like little artists themselves. — Tim Burton

Stick Boy liked Match Girl,
He liked her a lot.
He liked her cute figure,
he thought she was hot.
But could a flame ever burn
for a match and a stick?
It did quite literally;
he burned up quick. — Tim Burton

One of the things I loved about the musical was that you listened to the soundtrack and it told you the story. — Tim Burton

Technology is technology and then art form and people's creativity is another thing. Anything that helps an artist do anything - great! Technology for technology sake doesn't mean much to me anyway. — Tim Burton

And I Jack, the Pumpkin King, have grown so tired of the same old thing ... — Tim Burton

If you want people to leave you alone then appearing to be crazy is a good thing. If you're walking down the street talking to yourself people tend to give you a wide berth! But I've always been blessed with being easily ignored or avoided. I think maybe it's because people think I look a little crazy. — Tim Burton

It's hard to find logic in things sometimes. That's why I can't analyze things too much, because it often doesn't make much sense. — Tim Burton

[Childbirth] is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It's like an 'Alien' movie. I started crying, it was so emotional ... I was there in the room but I wasn't planning on doing much. But then I see this blue pinhead come out and I think I said to the nurse, 'What the hell is that?' And then it turns into this round red thing in seconds. It's just shocking. — Tim Burton

Even if you're doing something that the studio sends you, or something that's based on a book or story, at the end of it all, you try to make whatever it is your own. This is based on my love of horror movies. Everything is based on something, in some way. — Tim Burton

That's what I always loved about [Federico] Fellini's films: You see the weird joy of the weird filmmaking family and the abstract craziness that goes along with it, and there's something about it that's quite beautiful. — Tim Burton

I was never interested in what everybody else was interested in. I was very interiorized. I always felt kind of sad. — Tim Burton

I've always been more comfortable making my decisions from the subconscious level, or more emotionally, because I find it is more truthful to me; Intellectually, I don't think like that because I get uncomfortable. — Tim Burton

I started to do stop-motion when I was a kid. You take a Super 8 and make some models, and move, click, move, click. All that. I love all forms of animation, but there is something unique and special to stop-motion: it's more real and the set is lit like a set. But I think it's also a kind of lonely and dark thing to want to do. — Tim Burton

It's very nice to have someone that you can have a completely abstract conversation with and leave the room, feel like everything's fine, and then realize that if you pick it apart, you have absolutely no idea what either of you said. — Tim Burton

We all know interspecies romance is weird. — Tim Burton

I never really got nightmares from movies. In fact, I recall my father saying when I was three years old that I would be scared, but I never was. I was much more terrified by my own family and real life, you know? — Tim Burton

My kid is a product of the fast computer lifestyle. — Tim Burton

Unwisely, Santa offered a teddy bear to James, unaware
he had been mauled by a grizzly earlier this year. — Tim Burton

I've found that the people who play villains are the nicest people in the world and people who play heroes are jerks. — Tim Burton

One of the things that we were trying to do with this show was the complexities of relationships and love. There is both passion and longing and a bittersweet quality to it that is a part of life. — Tim Burton

There's something quite exciting when you have a history with somebody and you see them do new and different things. — Tim Burton

I always treated the science thing and the art thing as quite similar thematically. — Tim Burton

Staring Girl
I once knew a girl
who would just stand there and stare.
At anyone or anything,
she seemed not to care
She'd stare at the ground,
She'd stare at the sky.
She'd stare at you for hours,
and you'd never know why.
But after winning the local staring contest,
she finally gave her eyes
a well-deserved rest. — Tim Burton

Everything in this room is edible. Even I'm edible. But, that would be called canibalism. It is looked down upon in most societies. — Tim Burton

Nobody had his [Ed Wood's] style. That's something I try to do in my films. You have your own kind of cryptic messages in there - cryptic things that most people wouldn't understand but are important to you. Things that kind of keep you going through the process. — Tim Burton

I'm going to put that on my gravestone. "He created such a category of unwanted pop culture - - Famous for directing unwanted cultural references" — Tim Burton

I remember early in my career with Disney, which was a very strange time in the company - there were a couple of executives who were very supportive of me and kind of let me do my own thing. — Tim Burton

I had seen other stop-motion animated features, and they were either not engaging or they're just too bizarre. There was one I liked when I was a kid called Mad Monster Party. People thought Nightmare was the first stop-motion animated monster musical, but that was. — Tim Burton

Drawing is exercise for a restless imagination. — Tim Burton

It's always an interesting challenge to see if you can create a character that's got emotion. — Tim Burton

I always wonder why some people see things as weird and some people don't. — Tim Burton

There was one moment, and it happened in school. I had a big final exam
we were supposed to write a 20-page report on this book about Houdini [Harry Houdini]. I probably would have loved reading it, but I didn't, so I just decided to make a little super-8 movie based on it. I tied myself to the railroad tracks and all that. I mean, this is kid stuff, but it impressed the teacher, and I got an A. And that was maybe my first turning point, when I said, 'Yeah, I wouldn't mind being a filmmaker.' — Tim Burton

Minister: Welcome, brother! Do you reject Satan and all his works?
Bunny Breckinridge: Sure. — Tim Burton

One person's crazyness is another person's reality. — Tim Burton

Mayor: How horrible our Christmas will be!
Jack Skellington: *No.*
[the Mayor switches to his upset face]
Jack Skellington: How *jolly*!
Mayor: Oh. How *jolly* our Christmas will be — Tim Burton

Don't worry about how you 'should' draw it. Just draw it the way you see it. — Tim Burton

Every day is Halloween, isnt it? For some of us ... — Tim Burton

Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams? — Tim Burton

Son, are you happy? I don't mean to pry, but do you dream of Heaven? Have you ever wanted to die? — Tim Burton

Most people say about graveyards: "Oh, it's just a bunch of dead people. It's creepy." But for me, there's an energy to it that it not creepy, or dark. It has a positive sense to it. — Tim Burton

Anybody with artistic ambitions is always trying to reconnect with the way they saw things as a child. — Tim Burton

Get away from meeeee!" Edgar -Frankiewinnie — Tim Burton

It's good as an artist to always remember to see things in a new, weird way. — Tim Burton

I did some sports. It was a bit frustrating. I wasn't the greatest sports person. — Tim Burton

Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Not necessarily in that order. — Tim Burton

I don't know what it was, maybe the movie theaters in my immediate surrounding neighbourhood in Burbank, but I never saw what would be considered A movies. — Tim Burton

I am not a big technology person. I don't go on the Internet really much at all. Drawing is like a zen thing; it's private, which in this day and age is harder to come by. — Tim Burton

I feel any time you enter a dream world it's like you're working out things, it's all inside your mind and you're working it out, be it Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, or the kids in Narnia, they go through this weird journey that's not real, and they're going through this journey psychologically. It's that journey of discovery, of getting onself together, that fantasy and fairy tales are so good at. And while some people still look upon them as completely unrealistic, for me they're more real than most things that are perceived as real. — Tim Burton

I'm a happy-go-lucky manic-depressive. It does get very deep and dark for me, and it gets scary at times when I feel I can't pull out of it. But I don't consider myself negative-negative. I'm positive-negative. — Tim Burton

Maybe it's just in America, but it seems that if you're passionate about something, it freaks people out. You're considered bizarre or eccentric. To me, it just means you know who you are. — Tim Burton

A lot of things you see as a child remain with you ... you spend a lot of your life trying to recapture the experience. — Tim Burton

Anybody who knows me knows I would never read a comic book. — Tim Burton

I am not a dark person and I don't consider myself dark. — Tim Burton

Can a heart break, once it's stopped beating? — Tim Burton

You don't know whether chimps are going to kill you or kiss you. They're very open on some levels and much more evil in a certain way. — Tim Burton

It's great when you know somebody and they keep surprising you. — Tim Burton

Things that I grew up with stay with me. You start a certain way, and then you spend your whole life trying to find a certain simplicity that you had. It's less about staying in childhood than keeping a certain spirit of seeing things in a different way. — Tim Burton

I am the shadow on the moon at night/Filling your dreams to the brim with fright. — Tim Burton

Good morning starshine the earth says hello.... — Tim Burton

I remember being forced to go to Sunday school for a number of years, even though my parents were not religious. No one was really religious; it was just the framework. There was no passion for it. No passion for anything. Just a quiet, kind of floaty, kind of semi-oppressive, blank palette that youre living in. — Tim Burton

For some of us, Halloween is everyday. — Tim Burton

In Hollywood, they think drawn animation doesn't work anymore, computers are the way. They forget that the reason computers are the way is that Pixar makes good movies. So everybody tries to copy Pixar. They're relying too much on the technology and not enough on the artists. — Tim Burton

It's like getting into film - I didn't say early on, 'I'm going to become a filmmaker,' 'I'm going to show my work at MoMA.' When you start to think those things, you're in trouble. — Tim Burton

One person's craziness is another person's reality. — Tim Burton

My name is Jimmy, but my friends just call me the hideous penguin boy. — Tim Burton

Stain Boy Of all the super heroes, the strangest one by far, doesn't have a special power, or drive a fancy car. next to Superman and batman, I guess he must seem tame. But to me he is quite special, and Stain Boy is his name. He can't fly around tall buildings, or outrun a speeding train, the only talent he seems to have is to leave a nasty stain. Sometimes I know it bothers him, that he can't run or swim or fly, and because of this one ability, his dry cleaning bill is sky-high. — Tim Burton

I've always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people but they'd still say I'm a dark personality. — Tim Burton

Certain things leave you in your life and certain things stay with you. And that's why we're all interested in movies- those ones that make you feel, you still think about. Because it gave you such an emotional response, it's actually part of your emotional make-up, in a way. — Tim Burton

I think a lot of kids feel alone and slightly isolated and in their own world. — Tim Burton

When we were growing up and saw a Ray Harryhausen movie, we were interested in how it was done. But thank God we got to go through the magic of seeing it before we knew how it was done. You were able to get this beautiful, pure, visceral response to something without knowing too much about it. — Tim Burton