Richard Ayoade > Quotes

“Cinema helps us to remember that although we all have the right to shine, some of us must shine in the background, out of focus, and not too brightly.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“I don't know how to be myself. It's like I'm permanently outside myself. Like, like you could push your hands straight through me if you wanted to. And I can see the type of man I want to be versus the type of man I actually am and I know that I'm doing it but I'm incapable of what needs to be done. I'm like Pinocchio, a wooden boy. Not a real boy. And it kills me.”
― Richard Ayoade, The Double

“I have all these things that I want to say to her, like... Like how I can tell she's a lonely person, even if other people can't. Cause I know what it feels like to be lost and lonely and invisible.”
― Richard Ayoade, The Double

“I don't know that I brood. I just occasionally take time out to silently consider the specific ways in which others have wronged me.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey

“Did you know … Roman Polanski sometimes has sex with adults?”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey

“Somewhere in the distance a wolf could be howling, but he decides not to. This particular wolf is by nature quiet and doesn't wish to blindly conform to stereotype.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey

“Even so-called 'short novels' are pretty long and can take several hours to read, so make sure you stay hydrated. I like to keep an isotonic sports drink handy if I'm going to be reading for any longer than forty minutes. I'll also take regular breaks and make sure I'm wearing loose-fitting clothing.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey

“When my parents weren’t watching the news, they were either waiting to watch the news or recovering from watching the news. The news confirmed their feeling that things were terrible everywhere, and there was nothing anyone could do about it apart from keep abreast of developments. I’ve avoided the news ever since.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“Shyness can be interpreted as a kind of aggression.”
― Richard Ayoade

“I've found out that I may be more awkward than I thought I was, but then I never saw anyone because I was in my room a lot. It's fine not to speak when you're on your own and to stammer and to not have eye contact but, outside, it's frowned upon.”
― Richard Ayoade

“Because to be moved by something made by someone who has done something bad would mean that a bad person possesses the capacity to connect to us; that they haven’t, somehow, forfeited their humanity.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“Has any film ever been made that’s better than the worst episode of Columbo?”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey

“Vaginal eggs are no more real to me than penis toast or anal pancakes.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“So I've tried to make this book as dense as possible, like a neutron star. And if you think I came up with that simile by googling 'What stuff is most dense?', you'd be wrong. I already knew neutron stars were maybe dense before I googled it to make sure.”
― Richard Ayoade, The Grip of Film

“One man's Michelangelo is another man's Milli Vanilli.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“Fury is something you need, and if someone tells you otherwise, try screaming at them. They’ll often go quiet and start to cry. That’s when you know you’ve won.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“car. My parents were always in the car, going to places, getting out of the car at those places and asking me to stay in the car until they got back from those places. But they needn’t have asked. Where else would I go? It never occurred to me to leave the car. The only reason I wasn’t still in bed was because I was told it was time to get out of bed and get in the car.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“Did you know … Werner Herzog is too self-conscious to eat Wiener Hotdogs?”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey

“For a tree without a past is like a man without roots; and unless we stand in rich soil, our leaves will blow like blossom into the night.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey

“Donna can’t believe that one person could own all of these clothes. My thoughts turn, as I’m sure do yours, to moth management. Sometimes people ask me what I do, and the correct answer is ‘almost nothing’, but if pressed, I might say that I’m a writer.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“You know, it's funny: there are never any middle-aged souls. You hear about people being young souls, you really hear about old souls, but what about middle-aged souls?”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey

“We applaud both her dogged grit and the film’s message: that there are some people who, despite shutting everyone out of their lives in order to achieve their goals, can repair the untold damage they’ve wreaked by making a small admission of culpability late in Act III, followed by a declaration of love.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“And did any of the great Renaissance painters choose their own subjects? There must be more to life than crucifixion, but you wouldn't think it by flicking through their portfolios.”
― Richard Ayoade, The Unfinished Harauld Hughes

“No one who achieved anything was ‘there’ for someone else. They were elsewhere. Achieving.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“What happens when we've long admired someone for their talent and then find out that despite the fact they excel at darts, they're socially conservative? How can we go on enjoying the way a person throws miniature arrows at some circular cork now that we diverge politically? And what if we find that people who make art can be terrible, perhaps even criminal? How do we get back the time we wasted enjoying their work before we knew that we wouldn't have enjoyed it if we'd known? Can we not get some kind of certification of sanctity before we allow ourselves to be moved? Because to be moved by something made by someone who has done something bad would mean that a bad person possesses the capacity to connect to us; that they haven't, somehow, forfeited their humanity.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“Is there any moment in time when you‘re doing something better than watching Predator?”
― Richard Ayoade, The Grip of Film

“If a fleet of jet-black CHOPPERS ain't cresting over a back-lit hill by the end of Act II, you've got to start asking yourself whether this is a movie or a fucking art installation.”
― Richard Ayoade, The Grip of Film

“Dispensing with the rug is a kenotic act of distillation. Such men eschew ornament and ostentation. Their very being seems to say, ‘Have you any idea how quickly I can shower?”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“Vaginal eggs are the result of taking the name of a body part and placing it next to the name of a breakfast item. Vaginal eggs are no more real to me than penis toast or anal pancakes. As my mother would always say to me, nothing that can hatch belongs in your vagina.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top

“This is God asking you to leave His kingdom, and by all accounts He's not a Huge One for self-doubt. There is no verse saying, 'And lo, God felt that, on second thoughts, He'd been a bit hasty, so He said, "Adam, mate, at the end of the day it's just a bit of fruit. It's no biggie. I felt a bit mugged off by your missus, I'd been working a six-day week, I'm a little bit tired and emotional, we're all new to this game, come back to the garden and we can thrash it out over a couple of tins.”
― Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Top