Quentin Tarantino Quotes

I have four kids in a private school who have not yet entered college. Their tuition is what keeps me motivated. Life is simple sometimes.

I'd go back, yeah. I don't care, I got a kid, man - I'll sell tampons. I mean, there's no selling-out once you get a kid. I got a kid.

The trouble when you have a job like mine is it's your social life as well, so I need to actually [find] something to do in my downtime when my kids are at school.

It’s also true that I might have never made Taxi Driver [1976] were it not for the success of Alice [Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1974]. The question of commercialism is a source of worry. Must one make a choice, must it be a matter of either setting your sights on winning an Academy Award and becoming a millionaire, or making only the movies you want to make and starving to death?

Going back to my film education, I always have that voice in my head that's always screaming, 'Sell out!' And that's good: you want that, because it keeps you on your toes, and it's important to remember what's actually important.

I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff.

I've heard some people say that I'm selling out, but I'm not. If I hadn't done 'Black Radio', and just kept on doing just piano trio stuff, I wouldn't be honest with myself; I'd be doing it to please other people. That would be selling out.

The biggest difference between me and other artists out there is that they'll put anything out to sell a record or sell a ticket.

Capitalists work hard to produce what consumers want. Artists who work too hard to produce what consumers want are often accused of selling out. Thus, even the languages of capitalism and art conflict: a firm that has 'sold out' has succeeded, but an artist that has 'sold out' has failed.

It's just a campy blast. I just want to do as little as I can and make it good, and try not to sell out. I'm sure I will, but I'm just trying to postpone it.

With Lady Antebellum, there's always pressure. It's hard for commerce not to rear its ugly head when you're making decisions.

I worry that I am not really a person anymore: I'm more of just a writing machine. I wonder what that has done to either my life and or my art.

I think, as a filmmaker, it's important to be honest with yourself at all times in terms of what's working and what's not.

There's a fine line between artist and product. I don't think the industry purposely does it, but I think that's just the way they maneuver. You have to be careful that doesn't become your story, where you become a product, and your art is tarnished because you're just seen as a tool to make money.

We obviously need to make money to survive, but we aren't going to sacrifice our creative integrity to do anything that doesn't feel like us.

As a creative individual, I really go out of my way to avoid the corporate scene in terms of songwriting. If the first question is how much money is it going to make, I'm going to be in trouble anyway.

You can have integrity with your art, but worrying about integrity doesn't pay the bills.

Look, I'm just this kid from Toronto who got his start in school plays. I still live with my folks who make me mow the grass and take the garbage out. Then one day, I'm on this multimillion dollar set surrounded by R2D2 and C3PO. Every nuance was surreal. The saber. A thrill. The outfit and cloak? Mind-boggling. Meeting R2D2. An out-of-body experience.

I had to make a living. I had the mortgage to pay, I had the school fees to pay. I had bread and butter to put on the table. You know your worth as an actor, but you have to get a job.

Eventually I got asked to be in a Michael J. Fox sitcom called High School U.S.A. I didn’t think it was funny and said no. They doubled the money, and that kind of offended me. I realized, oh, that’s right, my opinion means nothing in Hollywood. I’d seen other people compromise, and I felt that once you gave up on what you wanted to do, you couldn’t go back. It was selling out. So I decided to go back to Minneapolis.

I need energy every day. Whether I'm leaving home and going to practice or getting in the car with my two kids to take my son to school - I need all the energy I can get.

Me? I see an old, broke-ass black guy taking care of a bunch of kids, living life, taking them to school, and all that stuff, who's asking himself: What the hell is this? But I wouldn't give it up for the world because I love my wife. I never expected to have a life like this. No chaos... no confusion... no lawsuits... no violence... no going to jail.

I don't hold it against Dizzy [Gillespie], you know, but if a guy wants to play a certain way, you work towards that. If he stops - he's full of crap, you know. I mean, I wouldn't do it, for no money, or for no place in the white man's world. Not just to make money, because then you don't have anything. You don't have as much money as whoever you're trying to ape; that's making money by being commercial. Then you don't have anything to give the world; so you're not important. You might as well be dead.

We have to invest in our kids, we have to invest in our communities, we have to create jobs. We have to make certain that kids are not dropping out of school and hanging out on street corners.

I send my kids to school not only to learn how to read and write and do math, but also to develop socially.