Charlie Kaufman · 161 pages
Rating: (110 votes)
“Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you'll never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope for something good to come along. Something to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved.”
― Charlie Kaufman, quote from Synecdoche, New York: The Shooting Script
“And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I've been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen.”
― Charlie Kaufman, quote from Synecdoche, New York: The Shooting Script
“There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.”
― Charlie Kaufman, quote from Synecdoche, New York: The Shooting Script
“CLAIRE
I used to be a baby!
CADAN
I'm sorry.”
― Charlie Kaufman, quote from Synecdoche, New York: The Shooting Script
“You've been a part of me forever. Don't you know that? I breathe your name in every exhalation.”
― Charlie Kaufman, quote from Synecdoche, New York: The Shooting Script
“All credit to the men who invented paint and canvas, but there’s more credit, eh? to the Raphaels and Holbeins who used those discoveries! Laennec and Osler, those are the men! It’s all very fine, this business of pure research: seeking the truth, unhampered by commercialism or fame-chasing. Getting to the bottom. Ignoring consequences and practical uses. But do you realize if you carry that idea far enough, a man could justify himself for doing nothing but count the cobblestones on Warehouse Avenue — yes and justify himself for torturing people just to see how they screamed — and then sneer at a man who was making millions of people well and happy!”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Arrowsmith
“These were madmen, Simon realized, and that was the direst problem of the world: that madmen should be strong and unafraid, so that they, could force their will on the weak and peace-loving.”
― Tad Williams, quote from To Green Angel Tower, Part 1
“Interpretation though the filters of ideology has always been one of our race’s curses.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Neutronium Alchemist
“Byelorussian songs, if you've ever heard them are slightly monotonous, even mournful yet they do have a certain melancholy charm and compassion about them.”
― Anatoli Rybakov, quote from Heavy Sand
“No vision is worth the paper it's printed on unless it is communicated constantly and reinforced with rewards.”
― Jack Welch, quote from Winning
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