Richard Linklater > Quotes

“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, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“Yeah, a memory's never finished, if you really think about it.”
― Richard Linklater, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“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, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“Even being alone it's better than sitting next to your lover and feeling lonely. - Celine”
― Richard Linklater, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“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, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“…[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, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

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

“A self-destructive man feels completely alienated, utterly alone. He's an outsider to the human community. He thinks to himself, "I must be insane." What he fails to realize is that society has, just as he does, a vested interest in considerable losses and catastrophes. These wars, famines, floods and quakes meet well-defined needs. Man wants chaos. In fact, he has to have it. Depression, strife, riots, murder - all this dread. We're irresistibly drawn to that almost orgiastic state created out of death and destruction. It's in all of us. We revel in it. Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things and paints them up as great human tragedies. But we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world - no! Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them. The powers that be want us to be passive observers, and they haven't given us any other options outside the occasional, purely symbolic, participatory act of voting. "You want the puppet on the right or the puppet on the left?"
I feel that the time has come to project my own inadequacies and dissatisfactions into the sociopolitical and scientific schemes, let my own lack of a voice be heard.”
― 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, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“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

“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, Before Sunrise

“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, Before Sunrise

“The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure, while always arriving.”
― 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, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“Memory is a wonderful thing if you don’t have to deal with the past.”
― Richard Linklater, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“To those humans in whom I have faith; I wish suffering, being forsaken, sickness, maltreatment, humiliation. I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, and the misery of the vanquished. I have no pity for them because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures' . . . Remember, the passion for destruction is also a creative passion.”
― Richard Linklater, Slacker

“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, Slacker

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

“...like a sunrise or sunset,
anything so ephemeral. Just like
our life - we appear and we disappear
and we are so important to some,
but, we are just passing through.”
― Richard Linklater, Before Midnight

“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, Slacker

“That’s what I like about traveling—you can sit down, maybe talk to someone interesting, see something beautiful, read a good book, and that’s enough to qualify as a good day. You do that at home and everyone thinks you’re a bum.”
― Richard Linklater, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

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

“You can never replace anyone because everyone is made up of such beautiful specific details.”
― Richard Linklater

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

“Dream is destiny.”
― 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, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“time is a lie …”
― Richard Linklater, Before Sunrise & Before Sunset: Two Screenplays

“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

“JESSE
I have a time machine up in my room.
I've come to save you just like I
said I would.
CELINE
Save me from what?
JESSE
Save you from being blinded by all
the little bullshit of life.”
― Richard Linklater, Before Midnight

“The big nut to crack is to how to tell a story, what’s the right way to tell a particular story.”
― Richard Linklater