Willem Dafoe Quotes

I have some sort of affinity for compulsive behavior. The most interesting stories come up from the people on the outside.

You have to do stuff that average people don't understand because those are the only good things.

Normal people do not create art.

If you have written something that the film people want, like a book, it does give you a way in.

I'm a compulsive everything.

Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been...frighten ed enough to hold it back. It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.

As an investor-entrepreneur, I’ve always tried to be contrarian, to go against the crowd, to identify opportunities in places where people are not looking.

People say you can't make movies about your politics or the environment. And, generally speaking, I completely divide those sides of my brain.

I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward.Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife.

I never dreamed about being on a hit television series. I've never really related my dreams to that specific of a work goal. I was always enjoying the moment. Acting, writing, looking for roles and getting involved with people and trying to create something that would be entertaining to people. With "E.R." we were all very lucky to get this combination of people together in the right story in the right way to take it to the level it has reached.

I'm not limited to categories or genres. Anything human beings come up with fascinates me. If a three-legged idiot like me can dance to it, then that's all well and fine.

As a director and filmmaker, I love creating my own opportunity, and getting to share the love, in that way, by creating other opportunities for people that I admire, so that they can do something in a way they haven't done it before.

I don't want realism. I'll tell you what I want. Magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth. I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!

I envisioned all these people who had been admired for having been freaks in their own time, and I saw myself in line with them.

Neurotics are always looking for something new to overdo.

Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.

I try to please people, to give them a good time, but I refuse to make my act conform to traditional show-biz standards of entertainment. There's a little voice that says, 'Oh, no, you can't do that, that's breaking all the rules.' That's the voice of show business. Then this other little voice says, 'Try it.' And most of the time, when the voice comes on and says, 'No,' that's the time it works.

My feeling has always been if you entertain people, they give you permission to do more on a thematic or character level.

I really love art and I always have in every single different form and I just hope that I'm able to give some art that will touch some people and help them to be more positive and stronger.

The great challenge which faces us is to assure that, in our society of big-ness, we do not strangle the voice of creativity, that the rules of the game do not come to overshadow its purpose, that the grand orchestration of society leaves ample room for the man who marches to the music of another drummer.

If you feel like a weirdo, it's okay because weirdos rule the world.

Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.

I feel the craziest people are sometimes the most intelligent.

The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the rule.

Creativity begins with an affinity for something. It's like falling in love.