Stan Brakhage Quotes

I thought if I could understand why apes get mean and horrible and aggressive when they grow up, maybe I could understand why people get mean and horrible and aggressive and have wars.

Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating. It means nothing.

Walking around sometimes, I would love to just be able to watch people, see how they act. Sometimes I would love to be invisible.

Certain gorillas are more evolved than certain human beings I know.

I've always been someone who really watches other people, human behavior. To watch it and be able to express it through your version has always been really exciting to me.

I think whenever any guys come along they're intimidated, and they don't really talk that much unless I talk to them.

Without game, men prey on each other.

Certainly I'm still mining my experiences as a journalist. I think it's no coincidence that all three of my novels basically are about how people act in a time of catastrophe. Do they go to their best self or their worst self?

Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?

It sometimes is just the fear of being misunderstood.

The work on ants has profoundly affected the way I think about humans.

Our aggression is a deep instinct which survives in all kinds of manifestations in modern man.

That human beings seek their own well-being and that of those close to them is not an especially provocative discovery. What is important is that this universal aspect of human nature persists no matter what economic system is in place; it merely expresses itself in different forms.

The first inclination which an animal has is to protect itself

I connect with just plain old everyday people. Human behavior fascinates me, the people who are the nuts and bolts of this country who help hold up the world.

I thought talking to human beings was just something that could make things complicated and unpleasant. So I didn't talk much. I just watched people.

The principles and passions of men are always the same and lead to the same result, varying only according to the circumstances in which they are placed.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

If you're truly depicting human behavior in an honest way, it is a lot of miscommunication, non-communication, paranoia, passive aggressiveness. People don't finish sentences. They don't say what they mean. They lie to each other. They take credit for things that are actually other people's ideas.

Nature governs man by no principle more fixed than that which leads him to pursue his interest.

I'm quiet, so people might think I'm a mute.

People love drama. They feed off of it.

I do think technology really has changed the way that we communicate with each other and texting can be the way to communicate and to kind of get up the nerve to say things that maybe you wouldn't say in real life, but that also comes with a price.

For me, when we're all human beings, it's just interesting that we cannot understand the other person or how they think. That's one part of the human aspect that fascinates me.

One of my pleasures is observing people's behavior and pointing out the inconsistencies that we all sort of have at the center of our lives.