Kubrick: "Art consists of reshaping life, but it does not create life nor cause life."

Kubrick: "It takes more discipline than you might imagine to think, even for thirty seconds, in the noisy, confusing, high-pressure atmosphere of a film set. But a few seconds' thought can often prevent a serious mistake being made about something that looks good at first glance."

Kubrick: "When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man."

Kubrick: "Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all."

Kubrick: "You're an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot."

Kubrick: "You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas."

Kubrick: "If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered."

Kubrick: "A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later."

Kubrick: "The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes."

Kubrick: "I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker."

Kubrick: "If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed."

Kubrick: "Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling."

Kubrick: "Here's to five miserable months on the wagon and the irreparable harm that it's caused me."