Charlie Kaufman Quotes

I just try to show up and be relaxed and present and honest. And that's my only trick. And sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Honestly, sometimes it really doesn't work.

There I go being critical again. Does a man have to stand on one foot and juggle for me to consider him entertaining? What am I looking for? A knight?...No, knights are all polished and shiny. I think my taste runs to something with a bit of tarnish and maybe a few scratches. Someone who can make me laugh and cry and make me angry and make my knees tremble when he touches me.

To me, I don't think it does anybody any good to just hide something or cover it up or lie or whatever. I think ... that's what being a role model is all about. It's not about being perfect. It's about speaking about your issues and inspiring others to get help.

I would just imagine there's a criticism for just about everything, if you want to take something down. No one's invincible. The Jicks are a work in progress and we don't think everything we do is the bee's knees or something, we're just trying our best to get turned on by what we're doing.

I think there's a little bit of idiot in everybody and I think some people cover it better than others but I think I am very much a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.

I am a bad feminist and a good woman. I am trying to become better in how I think and say and do - without abandoning what makes me human.

I don't think you have to be perfect to be a role model.

I think that's why Meryl Streep is working so much, because she looks like a woman we can all relate to. I look at her and I think, 'I'm chasing my kids, I've moved my parents in with me, I'm coping with food spills - that looks like me in real life'. Meryl looks like an unmade bed, and that's what I look like. To me, that looks true.

At Pixar, I don't have to compromise at all. When I look at the finished "Toy Story 3," I don't sit and constantly think, oh, the actor was having a bad day, or oh, it rained and we couldn't use that set. The story that I wanted to tell is what is on screen, and I haven't had to compromise it one iota.

To me, beauty is confidence. I think I’m pretty confident in the decisions and the choices I make in my personal life and career, but the same time I also let my fans know that, just like them, I have insecurities. I have moments when I don’t feel good about myself. I think people can forget that, at the end of the day, I’m just a normal girl dealing with lots of the same issues as them.

I'd like to say that I am romantic person, but I don't think I am. When I won my first tournament I went into the crowd and kissed my girlfriend. I was 18 and didn't have my coach with me, I was there on my own, and I just needed to celebrate with someone I knew. I always start out with good intentions. I'll say something nice, then I'll just put my foot in it and ruin the moment.

The ones I love most are the people who the flaws show. I like doing characters that we see the total person. If people get afraid to show the flaws because they think, "Oh, then nobody will like them," then you end up with a lot of products, and everybody wants to be frigging heroic all the time - not what people are trapped in every day, like your skirt being in your panties after you walk out of the bathroom. Being human. Sometimes when people are drawn to your work, they're drawn because they recognize themselves or their loved ones or their neighbor in it.

My theory is that church used to be that place. Instead of being a place where you went to look good, it was a place where you could risk going every week to look your worst.

I've been around the movie business, so I can play it cool and all that, but when people are different they have that off thing about them. Their whole presence is just a little innocent, I think.

I don't think kids should think their lives have to be perfect or have a filter or the best angle or anything like that. I think it's important to see that everybody is human and everyone has their ups and downs.

Everyone is broken a little, I think, and the most broken of all are those who pretend they are not.

Let go of who you think you should be in order to be who you are. Be imperfect and have compassion for yourself. Connection is the result of authenticity.

By cool, I don't mean cool. I mean vulnerable and a mess.

You shared one of the most intimate things that ever happened to you - falling in love with someone who wasn't brave enough to love you back. Your relieving yourself of your 'secret' is as much about wanting to honestly connect as it is about exhibition. We are all made better by your decision to share publicly.

But, you know, I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is being a man.

Probably I am very naive, but I also think I prefer to remain so, at least for the time being and perhaps for the rest of my life.

I want to be loved despite my faults. It isn't exactly true that I'm a provocateur. A real provocateur is someone who says things he doesn't think, just to shock. I try to say what I think.

No one wants to hear about how awesome you were; people want to hear about the time you blew it. So I think the longer you do stand-up, the more comfortable you are. You stop wanting to hide your foibles and instead want to show who you are.

Everything that looks too perfect is too perfect to be perfect.

Working with Katherine Hepburn, she said to me, "Don't act." She said, "Read the lines. Just be. Just speak the lines." I said, "Okay." She said, "You look good. You got a good pair of shoulders, you got a good head, good face."