Guillermo del Toro Quotes

People think that I have some idea about how I choose my films. I make sure that I am doing the kind of films that I want to watch. You hear so many stories, and one of them will stand out and connect to you somewhere.

...my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves.

I make movies based on gut.

You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut.

I started improvising the Cliff character, based on someone I grew up with.

I don't ever want to impose something on the story. I want the story to tell me.

My books start almost before I realise it. Once in a while, some accident causes an idea to rise to the surface and say: 'now.'

I don't outline; I listen to a kind of whisper inside the material.

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

None of my books has been ever in my head; after they're finished, they go. It's like being a sort of medium; you just grab it when it's there then just release it when it's time to go. There's a lot of instinct, not planning.

So many stories, and to choose which ones to tell and how to tell them. The words, they will tap me on the shoulder and they will speak to me: 'Tell me! Tell me!' The stories choose me.

Something about your life always makes its way into your stories. That's just the nature of the beast.

I know the movies that I've liked, and I know the experience that they've given me, so the goal is always to try to create a movie that I would like myself and that would knock me out, challenge me or intrigue me in some way. That's been my criteria for figuring out what I want to do, or also when I'm writing something or creating a scene.

Every film is a crapshoot. It's a mystery when a movie comes together. I've never been able to figure it out. I don't know how I make my choices. The only thing you can do is know there's something about a character that you really want to experience.

Most artists don't understand what they do, and I don't think we have to. Other people do that better - they understand what I do better than I do!

I never, ever decided that I had to write a novel because, to me, there's no such decision that ought to be made. It's only something that I felt compelled to do, and it began to evolve.

I've come to trust that what I like is what works.

Live life before making movies, because you cannot make films about life, without having lived one.

I've never had to search for themes. My films just come naturally out of my interest.

I never control a film. The film controls me.

I never punched in anything when I recorded Imaginaryland. Where the title came from is a whole other story.

When I write a story, it's not like I'm thinking about what I'm doing

Storytelling wasn't about making things up. It was more like inviting the stories to come through her, let themselves be told.

The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it.

I think once everything is in place, once you've kind of wrapped your head around the story and the character, it's very liberating and you can start doing things like you would do.