Mckean Quotes & Sayings

I've always used masks. I think it's a lot about the fact that masks often reveal a sort of subconscious element to a character. The mask is carved and given an expression or markings to reveal something, even though it's shielding the face. Even though it's hiding the face, it seems to reveal something underneath. — Dave McKean

Twitter has already birthed an entire ecosystem of other sites that extend its power or interact with it. But Twitter isn't just a platform for technological innovation: It's showing signs as an engine of creativity for the language, too. — Erin McKean

The process depends on the situation, and I don't think there are any two songs that have gone exactly the same way ... well, actually, that's not true. — Michael McKean

Sometimes we drop in and do an acoustic set somewhere, and that's really fun to take all these insanely loud songs, and to do them quiet. It's really a sight to see ... or to hear! — Michael McKean

Oh, sheep. I've lost all my sobbing colours. — Dave McKean

Singing when no one else is around is always good. I especially like belters. Good, loud singing is probably better medicine than half the stuff they sell in pill bottles, and it's cheaper, too. I also think people should never turn down an opportunity to hold a baby. There's something about the feel of a new baby in your arms that just fixes you. — Erin McKean

There are hundreds of thousands of words that aren't in any print dictionary today ... because there's no space for all of them. — Erin McKean

It's such a fine line between stupid and clever. — Michael McKean

A love letter is to be savored; a love email ... is to be forwarded to all your friends, and probably laughed at. — Erin McKean

I made some friends who are still friends, and this is the city of my birth. I love living here when there's a reason to, other than just moving here. I still don't like the winters here, but it's an amazing city and I love it. — Michael McKean

As an actor, you have to be able to take all sides as well. You have to at least be able to understand things. No bad guy looks in the mirror every morning and says, boy, I'm gonna be a real bad guy this morning. He goes after his own what he's after, just like us good guys. You kind of have to take a stand and, a lot of times, you have to take the writer's stand or the stand of the character this writer has created. — Michael McKean

There are very few good ways to get publicity for a dictionary. — Erin McKean

Almost any word can be drafted to serve as a verb, even words we think of as eternal and unchanging, stuck in their more traditional roles. — Erin McKean

That's a job that it makes a few friendships, but it probably breaks more. — Michael McKean

I'm kind of the town pump. I think I have a pretty good ear for what sounds good in this style. — Michael McKean

Words are so lovable. How could you not love words? — Erin McKean

I'm a huge science fan; I read a lot of science books. But I'm not a scientist, my interest in science is I love the facts, but I like to interpret those facts. They become the raw materials for stories and paintings and things. — Dave McKean

The rule is, don't speak of the dead, not don't speak ill of the dead's terrible relatives. — Erin McKean

You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female'. — Erin McKean

Most consumers don't have a good metric for deciding on whether the dictionary they want to use is a good one ... so they flip the book over, then go to the back, and it says, 'Over 250,000 entries.' And they go, 'Great, this dictionary must be awesome!' — Erin McKean

Writers who hedge their use of unfamiliar, infrequent, or informal words with 'I know that's not a real word,' hoping to distance themselves from criticism, run the risk of creating doubt where perhaps none would have naturally arisen. — Erin McKean

You will probably have but a short time to live. Before you launch into eternity, it behooves you to improve the time that may be allowed you in this world: it behooves you most seriously to reflect upon your past conduct; to repent of your evil deeds, to be incessant in prayers to the great and merciful God to forgive your manifold transgressions and sins, to teach you to rely upon the merit and passion of a dear Redeemer. — Thomas McKean

I think we would all like to believe that every new event demands a new word. But we're environmentally conscious with our words. We recycle words we've got. — Erin McKean

What I'm interested in is how people are reading and writing English. — Erin McKean

All language is a popularity contest. — Erin McKean

Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I've ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that 'fetch' is now the word I want to use to mean 'cool.' — Erin McKean

I like someone who laughs, but not all the time, and not too loud. I like it when someone laughs at the world, and not at someone in particular - when some particularly absurd thing happens, not just someone falling down. — Erin McKean

People say jargon is a bad thing, but it's really a shortcut vocabulary professionals use to understand one another. — Erin McKean

Experiences is just paying attention as time passes. — Erin McKean

You can limit the number of invitations to an in-person fashion show, but you can't police the Internet. — Erin McKean

Music is the space between the notes as much as the notes themselves; it's defined as much by silence as by sound. — James McKean

The use of food metaphors is really well established English ... Somebody is a peach, a hot tamale. — Erin McKean

When you're working with wood, every stroke of the tool dulls the edge just a little. Once, in my last year at the violin-making school, I had been passing through the workshop when I overheard one of the younger students ask the instructor how it was that his tools stayed sharp so much longer than ours. "I use them less," he said, looking out the window, which was where he addressed his replies to obvious questions. It took him two cuts to get where we took fifty. Art didn't need to cut a hundred times to get where he wanted to be. He lived the life he wanted to live the first time around. — James N McKean

There are people in the world who won't watch a movie that's in black and white. There's got to be a special place in hell for them. — Michael McKean

A lot of excellent illustrators are working at the moment
especially in fantasy and children's books. It is exciting also to see graphic artists such as Dave McKean, in his film Mirrormask, moving between different media. I also greatly admire the more traditional work of Gennady Spirin and Roberto Innocenti. Kinuko Craft, John Jude Palencar, John Howe, Charles Vess, Brian Froud ... I'll stop there, as the list would get too long. But
in a fit of pride and justified nepotism
I'll add my daughter, Virginia Lee, to the list. Her first illustrated children's book, The Frog Bride [coming out in the U.K. in September, 2007], will be lovely. — Alan Lee

PhotoShop is a program I use all the time with my 2D stuff. And that's an extraordinary program - you really can do anything there, and I've never hit my head on the ceiling. The 3D stuff is incredibly complicated, monstrously complicated, but for the things that I want to do, I've found very simple and interesting ways, I hope, of making images without getting tied up too much in the maps and technicalities. — Dave McKean

The true liberty of the press is amply secured by permitting every man to publish his opinion; but it is due to the peace and dignity of society, to inquire into the motives of such publications, and to distinguish between those which are meant for use and reformation, and with an eye solely to the public good, and those which are intended merely to delude and defame. To the latter description, it is impossible that any good government should afford protection and impunity. — Thomas McKean

If anything is guaranteed to annoy a lexicographer, it is the journalistic habit of starting a story with a dictionary definition. — Erin McKean

The filmmakers I really love are the ones that let me look through their eyes for a while. They have an aesthetic and social point of view. — Dave McKean

Even when there are banalities, they're usually kind of benign banalities. — Michael McKean

Ideally my goal is, before I die, to have some information about every word that's ever been used in print. — Erin McKean

It a heasy t'ing to live for de lightnin' crack hillumination of possession.
It heasy to hide in de dark o' faith, pretendin' dat anyt'in' dat skitter an' scuttle in de night is jus' bad himagination.
It a heasy t'in' jus' to stay where you at. Grow roots. Vegetate. Be a potato. — Dave McKean

And I don't like people who eat powdered doughnuts. I don't car how careful you are, they're just plain messy. I can't believe they taste good enough to justify getting that sugar all over everything, especially me. — Erin McKean

Most of the words you know and love and use every day are not words you learned by looking them up in a dictionary and reading a definition. — Erin McKean

I think a band that doesn't have a sense of humor can come up with their own take on whimsy.Kind of lead-footed and ham-handed, but I think just all the better for that. — Michael McKean

Pride in what and who you are is a strong foundation, but don't be defined by your oppression; use your anger, don't let it use you. — Dave McKean

For me, conferences are like little mental vacations: a chance to go visit an interesting place for a couple of days, and come back rested and refreshed with new ideas and perspectives. — Erin McKean

I don't want to get pigeonholed just doing just family films and fantasy films ... I don't really want to get pigeonholed just doing anything in particular. — Dave McKean

Reading a good comic is a creative act. Watching a film is often a more passive experience, and since I'm interested in engaging that conversational aspect of creativity, I'm trying to find ways of achieving that in my films. — Dave McKean

I think the two jobs I dreamed of doing as a teenager were comic book artist and record cover illustrator. Maybe film director was in the mix as well, but that seemed to be an impossible mountain to climb. — Dave McKean

Language is a nice way to remember things. — Erin McKean

The inspiration is all in the script, in the text. So whatever it is, either it is a film or a book to be illustrated, anything. Everything you need to know is in the text. So the thing is trying to find right tone and voice, the right style, the right way of expressing the emotions in a story or in the location of the story, but it is all in the text. — Dave McKean

She looked out at the other trees, and she realised that her life was one of thousands, any one of which could have been her, she had grown wherever her life had taken her, she had drifted wherever the wind had blown her. — Dave McKean

Usually, the most difficult thing to do is photo-real stuff. Something that has to actually look like the real world, because it's just so difficult to do that. We're just so used to looking at the real world, our brains instantly see when something is not quite right. — Dave McKean

We think people go to a dictionary to find out what a word means. Most people go to the dictionary because they don't want to look stupid. — Erin McKean

I think you have everyone kind of pulling on the same end of the rope. It's not like you're Robin Williams and everyone else is a deaf mute. It's like - there's plenty of help. — Michael McKean

Uniforms are intended to make the wearer look as strong as possible. Soldiers could fight in leotards, but that's never going to happen because leotards aren't intimidating. — Erin McKean

Everybody's a bird, locked up in a pretty cage. Sometimes you fly to a slightly bigger one, but you never quite have the courage to abandon captivity completely. — Dave McKean

I taught what was clear in Acts 11:26: SAVED = CHRISTIAN = DISCIPLE, simply meaning that you cannot be saved and you cannot be a true Christian without being a disciple also. I taught that, to be baptized, you must first make the decision to be a disciple, and then be baptized ... I taught that their baptism was invalid because a retroactive understanding of repentance and baptism was not consistent with Scripture. — Kip McKean

I like stories that exist both in the naturalistic world and in our imaginative lives, films are so immersive in that sense, we can explore how our characters think and dream, as well as how they exist in the real world. — Dave McKean

There is nobody who is good or bad, it's just not like that. They all are complex individuals. They all see the world in their own way that makes complete sense to them. Nobody goes around feeling that they're evil - they think that they're doing the right thing. And so that seems to have something really important, big, and deep to say about human beings. — Dave McKean

Sometimes the things I learn making paintings or drawings - composition, colour, expressionism, texture - can directly influence the making of a film. Sometimes it's great that they are different, and simply taking a break from one medium to spend time with another, recharges the batteries and I feel refreshed. — Dave McKean

Lexicographers are language reporters. — Erin McKean

If you want to be a chef or a scientist, you've got to know what the current thinking is, so if you want to write comics or draw comics find out what the very best ones are and look at them all and then you'll know where the bars are because the bars are often very high, if you are going to make a splash and make yourself known, you need to get to that level. — Dave McKean

Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult. — Erin McKean

They were kind of like little Stephen King stories ... but these go back many hundreds of years. — Michael McKean

Those people that you know for a long time and that you love, they're the easiest to talk to. — Michael McKean

This isn't a thrift store ... We're not selling them something less expensive, we're selling them something more special. We have to tell them the story of what we're showing them. And then we have to show them how they can be the new heroine in the story. — Erin McKean

There are so many comics about violence. I'm not entertained or amused by violence, and I'd rather not have it in my life. Sex, on the other hand, is something the vast majority of us enjoy, yet it rarely seems to be the subject of comics. Pornography is usually bland, repetitive and ugly, and, at most, 'does the job.' I always wanted to make a book that is pornographic, but is also, I hope, beautiful, and mysterious, and engages the mind. — Dave McKean

If you say 'anti-aging,' how anti would it have to be, really? My guess is not much. Any amount of sunscreen could be considered anti-aging. — Erin McKean

And then a strange thing happened. Out of the diseased and deteriorated pool os tired thoughts came life. A simple and poisoned life, but a life nonetheless. Death cultivated tis bacteria with love and attention. It thived in its stifling, hopeless world, sapping Death os all its energy, but Death didn't notice, for all its attention went on the fracturing, multiplying, fragmentary creations inside it.
And when the virus had eaten every fleck of Death, it lived on in Death's dry sarcophagus.
Life implied by Death. — Dave McKean

When you just get fantasy stories that are about fairies or goblins, I just don't care. I'm never going to meet a goblin, it doesn't mean anything to me. So my definition of fantasy is very broad, it's anything to do with memory, or dreams, or ways of interpreting or making sense of the world. — Dave McKean

Some people stay in the academic world just to avoid becoming self-aware. You can quote me on that. — Michael McKean

We've been using 'rejuvenate,' meaning to restore youth, to make young again, as a verb for at least 200 years. — Erin McKean

I like the adventures because you know that when they say, "I've got a plan," and then they tell you, you know it's not going to work. And when they say, "I've got a plan," and they don't tell you, you know it is going to work, and it's all very exciting. I thought real life might be like that for a while, so I didn't tell anybody what I wanted to happen, but it didn't make any difference. I knew I was kiddin' meself. — Dave McKean

If you want someone to stop listening to you go ahead and yell. If you want them to listen to every word, whisper. -Mimi — Erin McKean

If you're talking about how you promoted synergy in an organization, that could mean you just got everybody together for donuts twice a week. — Erin McKean

Singing is probably the better medicine than half the stuff they sell in pill bottles, and it's cheaper, too. — Erin McKean

Words take on many different meanings. — Erin McKean

It doesn't really matter [if she ever wears the dress], as long as she loves it. She'll wear it a hundred times in her imagination before she even tries it on again. As long as she has the option of wearing it, she'll be happy. — Erin McKean

I kind of enjoy the limits. If you've got no limits, you can do absolutely anything, it's very difficult, actually. I always enjoyed working with machines like color photocopiers and letter-pressing type settings, things where the limits are very apparent. You push the machine to do something, and it tries to do its best, and it usually has wonderful qualities all of its own. Then you get a sort of dialogue going, and the limitations become qualities. — Dave McKean

Sometimes, it seems to me that, the smaller the things is that people want, the bigger the disappointment when they don't get it, or it's not exactly right -dora — Erin McKean

When we can figure out a way to really tour and make a profit, then we'll do it again. — Michael McKean

It's not even been a two-and-two-make five sort of day, it's more like a two-and-two-make ... fish — Dave McKean

Objections to verbification in English tend to be motivated by personal taste, not clarity. Verbed words are usually easily understood. When a word like 'friend' is declared not a verb, the problem isn't that it's confusing; it's that the protester finds it deeply annoying. — Erin McKean

I like being able to do anything. I think that's healthy, doing anything and everything, rather than just getting completely obsessed with one particular genre or particular kind of work. — Dave McKean

But actually making pictures to look like my pictures, I've done it for so long, I'm kind of used to it now. So at the beginning of the process, designing and storyboarding everything, I sort of did all that. And then designed the characters, and doing the textures for the characters, and the texture maps to cover all the animated characters and the sets, I did those, because that's where my sort of coloring and textures get imprinted on the film. — Dave McKean

I suppose cats have sayings like ... "A dead mouse ... has no entertainment value." How's that? Doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, does it? Okay, how about ... "Red sky at night, time for a nap ... red sky in the morning ... time for a nap. — Dave McKean

Never put off until tomorrow that which may be avoided entirely. — Bill McKean

I would love to interview Michael McKean and his wife, who wrote the songs for 'A Mighty Wind,' which is my favorite Christopher Guest movie. I'm just a sucker for any funny guy that has a wife who is intelligent and that he collaborates with. — Julie Klausner

It's difficult to choose a Word of the Year in the year that you're in. It's one of those things that hindsight makes more apparent. It's like looking at pictures from 10 years ago, and you notice the flannel and the ripped jeans. At the time, it didn't look to you like a real fashion trend. — Erin McKean

Twitter is like overhearing people's conversations, which is exactly what dictionary editors have been wishing we could do for years. — Erin McKean

'Aging' has been bad ever since we figured out it led to dying. — Erin McKean

By the time the traditionally male lexicographers become interested in looking at fashion words, their origins are lost in the mists of time. — Erin McKean

My stuff is generally quite collage-y anyway. So it's sort-of suited to gathering raw materials like shooting actors, then making stills or animating characters, then just bringing them all together in a 3D space. That process is very close to my 2D work anyway. — Dave McKean

If words are doing their job, then their novelty will not be the most noticeable thing about them. — Erin McKean

People say to me, 'How do I know if a word is real?' You know, anybody who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it. That makes it real. — Erin McKean

I love the silent era because you can see the rules being written, the grammar of film being created. Most of my films are in some way love letters to the silent era. — Dave McKean

I mean, it's not even been a two-and-two-make five sort of a day, it's more like a two-and-to-make ... fish ... or something ... You know? Not even close to making sense. — Dave McKean

I've always liked making things that don't deny the medium that they're made in. If it's collage, I'm happy for it to look like that. If it's a film made with computers, I don't mind that it looks like a film made with computers as long as it still has a feeling or a mood or an atmosphere that is relevant. — Dave McKean