J Jarmusch Quotes & Sayings

I don't like American football. I think it's boring and ridiculous and predictable. But baseball is very beautiful. It's played on a diamond. — Jim Jarmusch

I've always loved films, always. I studied literature and I went to Columbia in New York and I went to Paris for part of one year and ended up staying there. — Jim Jarmusch

I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are. — Jim Jarmusch

LIFE HAS NO PLOT, WHY MUST FILMS OR FICTION? — Jim Jarmusch

I didn't get the degree because in my last year, for my thesis film I made a feature called Permanent Vacation and they'd given me a scholarship, the Louis B Mayer fellowship and they made a mistake. — Jim Jarmusch

It was a really interesting time in New York in the late 70s and early 80s, and the music scene was really, really interesting because you didn't have to be a virtuoso to make music, it was more about your desire to express things. — Jim Jarmusch

I love rehearsing because in rehearsals there are no mistakes, nothing is wrong, some things apply or lead you to focus on the character and the things that don't apply are equally valuable because they lead you to towards what does. — Jim Jarmusch

I'm an anxious person. What I like best is to smoke cigarettes and listen to music. A perfect day for me is a day with coffee, cigarettes, and music, to quote Jim Jarmusch. — Claire Denis

Cricket makes no sense to me. I find it beautiful to watch and I like that they break for tea. That is very cool, but I don't understand. My friends from The Clash tried to explain it years and years ago, but I didn't understand what they were talking about. — Jim Jarmusch

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to."
[MovieMaker Magazine #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ] — Jim Jarmusch

I like so many different directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, Woody Allen and the greats like Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky and among current filmmakers von Trier, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I think it comes from really liking literary forms. Poetry is very beautiful, but the space on the page can be as affecting as where the text is. Like when Miles Davis doesn't play, it has a poignancy to it. — Jim Jarmusch

Consequently, I get inspiration from all over the place. But it's not like a calculated thing on my part, or a way that I see myself. I'm just interested in things that move me, and I don't care where they come from. In fact, I'm interested if they come from a place I wouldn't expect, or would seem foreign to me on some level. — Jim Jarmusch

When you separate an entwined particle and you move both parts away from the other, even at opposite ends of the universe, if you alter or affect one, the other will be identically altered or affected. Spooky. (Adam in Only Lovers Left Alive) — Jim Jarmusch

Separate two particles, place them at opposite ends of the universe, produce some effect in one, and the other will be identically affected. — Jim Jarmusch

Hopefully, if not it's not working right. I'm like a navigator and I try to encourage our collaboration and find the best way that will produce fruit. I like fruit. I like cherries, I like bananas. — Jim Jarmusch

In adolescence I started to find out about Robert Wilson because I saw Lou Reed's "Timerocker" at [the Brooklyn Academy of Music]. I started getting into Jim Jarmusch and knew that my uncle was a friend of his. I pieced together parts of his life in high school and college, which lead me to his story in a funny way. — Aaron Brookner

When I hear the word 'independent' I reach for my revolver. At this point, what the hell does that mean? The English Patient is an independent film. Hootie and the Blowfish are alternative music. I'm the Queen of Denmark. I don't know what it means anymore. — Jim Jarmusch

Contradiction was something I really like when it is embraced in that kind of philosophy. — Jim Jarmusch

One of my favorites of all time was with Jim Jarmusch, called 'Dead Man.' I was in that with Johnny Depp. I ride really well, and I shoot a gun really well. I love the genre. Once I did Westerns, I was hooked. — Lance Henriksen

I'd wanted to be a writer and when I came back to New York worked as a musician too, but I found my writing starting to get more and more referential to cinema. — Jim Jarmusch

Before she married my father, my mother was a film reviewer for The Akron Beacon Journal - a small newspaper. — Jim Jarmusch

I always think the Sex Pistols and the Ramones as very, very important because they stripped things down. — Jim Jarmusch

Poets are always ahead of things in a certain way, their sense of language and their vision. — Jim Jarmusch

I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting. — Jim Jarmusch

It's a sad and beautiful world. — Jim Jarmusch

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new film, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. — Jim Jarmusch

Music, to me, is the most beautiful form, and I love film because film is very related to music. It moves by you in its own rhythm. It's not like reading a book or looking at a painting. It gives you its own time frame, like music, so they are very connected for me. But music to me is the biggest inspiration. When I get depressed, or anything, I go "think of all the music I haven't even heard yet!" So, it's the one thing. Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you? — Jim Jarmusch

I thought The Limits of Control could be interpreted in two ways: as the limits of one's self-control; and as the limits of allowing other people's control over one's -consciousness - which I kind of thought was a double meaning that was appropriate. — Jim Jarmusch

The beauty of ideas is that they are like waves in the ocean and they connect with things that came before them, and I think it is very important to embrace things that interest you and influence you, and incorporate them into what you do, as all artists have always done. The ones that say they don't, are lying. Or are afraid that their work won't be seen as being original, somehow. — Jim Jarmusch