Terry Gilliam Quotes

I was born in 1940 in Minnesota and grew up in the country... dirt roads, swamps, lakes, woods.

I've given up asking questions. l merely float on a tsunami of acceptance of anything life throws at me ... and marvel stupidly.

I just like the fact I can make a film which might give comfort to some people who think they are the only crazy person in the world and suddenly they see there are two crazy people in the world.

I was doing political cartoons and getting angry to the point where I felt I was going to have to start making and throwing bombs. I thought I was probably a better cartoonist than a bomb maker.

John Cleese was with a group called Cambridge Circus, who had come to New York, and we became friends. Years later that produced a certain team effort.

I don't think you ever learn just one thing. At some point you start unlearning things. I have been working hard to unlearn everything I know.

You get trapped by stories. Though I've got this reputation for being out of control, it's not true, it just happens to be a more interesting story than the truth.

Literally overnight, I became an animator... and one that was well-known.

I was an incredible Anglophile. I found people who shared the same sense of humor and attitude toward the world.

Because I dislike being quoted I lie almost constantly when talking about my work.

I'm trying to escape by forming my own kind of world. Basically, I'm trying to encourage others to do the same.

I can feel my dreams but I can't remember them.

If you really want your films to say something that you hope is unique, then patience and stamina, thick skin and a kind of stupidity, a mule-like stupidity, is what you really need.

I got my head bashed in at a demonstration against the Vietnam War. Police were losing control because they were up against a world they really didn't understand.

Whatever I do might be good, it might be bad, it might be all sorts of things, but it's not mediocre.

Gorillaz virtually changed my wife...sorry, I mean, life...no, actually, it was my wife.

I'm overwhelmed by writers. Most people aren't impressed by writers, but if you can draw a cartoon or a picture, they think you're magic.

Hyperbole is something Id better avoid.

I do want to say things in these films. I want audiences to come out with shards stuck in them. I don't care if people love my films or walk out, as long as they have a strong response.

I've always sworn that not having enough money has saved me from mediocrity.

All films are learning processes. I am still trying to work out how you make a movie. I didn't study at film school or any of those things. I didn't bother with film theory.

People in Hollywood are not showmen, they're maintenance men, pandering to what they think their audiences want.

In advertising, I was frustrated by having to deal with the client. It was the only time I really worked in a proper office, and I didn't like it-simple as that.

It's hard for me to worry about the studios losing money. I'm not very sympathetic to their money problems, because they certainly haven't been sympathetic to mine.

I was getting frustrated with America. It's interesting how as simple a thing as, like, letting your hair grow longer changed in the world in those days.

Actually, I began to think that maybe there is a god, after all. Or maybe its a different one. The old one got fired.

I thought, how do you confuse violent Russian mobsters? Well, by being silly!

Once the voices are in your head, it's either make a movie or kill a lot of people.

Invariably, what I'm trying to do is more ambitious than the budget, but we manage to do it somehow.

I got tired of my taxes paying for exciting little wars around the world. Then I discovered that when I died, my wife would probably have to sell our house to pay for the taxes in America.

The English are such a frightened, nervous, insecure group of people - they no longer rule the world!

I wasn't creative or theatrical. I was just doing everything. I was head cheerleader, valedictorian - it was ridiculous!

I think that's the problem with kids now. Everything is manufactured. And then they're sitting there watching the television, where all the work is done for them. Radio made me use my imagination.

The success of the Hollywood marketing machine is to limit what we see. Not just to limit what we can see, but also to limit our expectations - to limit what we want to see.

The whole point of animation to me is to tell a story, make a joke, express an idea. The technique itself doesn't really matter. Whatever works is the thing to use.

Talent is less important in filmmaking than patience.

Everybody gets excited about technology, but it doesn't interest me in the least. I'm only interested in it if it makes my job easier or cheaper. They're tools.

Now, anybody can make a movie, and I don't see that many great movies, because I think there's only a limited amount of talent out there.

I never define depression, clinical or otherwise. It's the basis of most life, it seems to me, in the modern world. We're all depressed.

It's the shock of the world if you allow yourself to disconnect from the world and forget it's out there, how noisy it is, how busy it is, how invasive it is.

I hate losing laughs; they're rare things.

I think it's worse for actors, though, because people have to choose you. As a director, I get to choose the actors, but most of the time, actors have to be chosen in order to work.

You know the hardest thing to do in Hollywood is burn bridges. There is usually some sucker who still likes me. There is usually some sucker who will still work with me.

I'm more prone to anarchy than I am to control - even though I'm a film director.

My problem is I'm like a junkie. I want a good movie fix, and I never get that fix.

The more money you have to work with, the more people you have to deal with that you probably don't want to be spending time dealing with.

There was a perverse side of me, with things like Van Helsing coming out. I didn't want to go down that route.

I have always got medicine I want to give to people.

I like being a patron of things, I like patronizing things. And if it's not going to be people, I'll patronize a festival.

Writers do the self-censoring before they even get to the studio executive, because they know the film will not run that gauntlet. They, because they want to get their films made, they censor it.