Tim Burton Quotations

Things that I grew up with stay with me. You start a certain way, and then you spend your whole life trying to find a certain simplicity that you had. It's less about staying in childhood than keeping a certain spirit of seeing things in a different way.

My parents suffered from that ideal of a perfect nuclear family. They found that a difficult pressure, I think.

I think a lot of kids feel alone and slightly isolated and in their own world.

I wouldn't know a good script if it bit me in the face.

I am not a dark person and I don't consider myself dark.

It's like getting into film - I didn't say early on, 'I'm going to become a filmmaker,' 'I'm going to show my work at MoMA.' When you start to think those things, you're in trouble.

Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?

People told me I couldn't kill Nicholson, so I cast him in two roles and killed him off twice.

When it comes to art and science, people don't like a lot of either. Instead of being open to it, they're closed off about it.

It's hard to find logic in things sometimes. That's why I can't analyze things too much, because it often doesn't make much sense.

I've always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people but they'd still say I'm a dark personality.

I have a problem when people say something's real or not real, or normal or abnormal. The meaning of those words for me is very personal and subjective. I've always been confused and never had a clearcut understanding of the meaning of those kinds of words.

It's good as an artist to always remember to see things in a new, weird way.

In Hollywood, they think drawn animation doesn't work anymore, computers are the way. They forget that the reason computers are the way is that Pixar makes good movies. So everybody tries to copy Pixar. They're relying too much on the technology and not enough on the artists.

I get so tired of people saying, 'Oh, you only make fantasy films and this and that', and I'm like, 'Well no, fantasy is reality', that's what Lewis Carroll showed in his work.

Anybody with artistic ambitions is always trying to reconnect with the way they saw things as a child.

If I had a choice about going to a meeting at a studio or changing a nappy, I'd choose the nappy.

I've always been more comfortable making my decisions from the subconscious level, or more emotionally, because I find it is more truthful to me; Intellectually, I don't think like that because I get uncomfortable.

A lot of things you see as a child remain with you... you spend a lot of your life trying to recapture the experience.

I think of Ray Harryhausen's work - I knew his name before I knew any actor or director's names. His films had an impact on me very early on, probably even more than Disney. I think that's what made me interested in animation: His work.

Movies are like an expensive form of therapy for me.

You don't know whether chimps are going to kill you or kiss you. They're very open on some levels and much more evil in a certain way.

There's something about seeing this little inanimate object coming to life that's just very exciting. That's why with 'Nightmare' I held out for so long to do it.

I started to do stop-motion when I was a kid. You take a Super 8 and make some models, and move, click, move, click. All that. I love all forms of animation, but there is something unique and special to stop-motion: it's more real and the set is lit like a set. But I think it's also a kind of lonely and dark thing to want to do.

Jack Nicholson is a textbook actor who's very intuitive. He is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real.

I don't look at my films or my old drawings much, so that was an interesting way to kind of reconnect with myself a bit.

People say I am stuck in childhood, but it's not that. I remember seeing a Matisse retrospective, and you could see he started out one way, and then he tried something different, and then he seemed to spend his whole life trying to get back to the first thing.

When I was growing up, Dr. Seuss was really my favorite. There was something about the lyrical nature and the simplicity of his work that really hit me.

Anybody who knows me knows I would never read a comic book.

I did some sports. It was a bit frustrating. I wasn't the greatest sports person.

There's something quite exciting when you have a history with somebody and you see them do new and different things.

Anybody who knows me knows I would never read a comic book. And I certainly would never read anything written by Kevin Smith.

I never really got nightmares from movies. In fact, I recall my father saying when I was three years old that I would be scared, but I never was.

I am not a big technology person. I don't go on the Internet really much at all. Drawing is like a zen thing; it's private, which in this day and age is harder to come by.

I don't know what it was, maybe the movie theaters in my immediate surrounding neighbourhood in Burbank, but I never saw what would be considered A movies.

I remember early in my career with Disney, which was a very strange time in the company - there were a couple of executives who were very supportive of me and kind of let me do my own thing.

I happened to be listening to David Bowie's 'Heroes,' ... That, and a colleague in Austria was teaching heroism to Americans - how we spend lots of time discussing heroism.

I felt quite connected with Carlos before I met him.

He's basically a great character actor in a leading man's body. He's always kept that integrity. To me, it's something I find that's really amazing in this business.

People might say 'oh its too dark and scary' for children but you could say that about 'Nightmare before Christmas' also. People say their dog even liked watching 'Nightmare Before Christmas'. So this is for animals, children, whoever.

When I saw Carlos's drawings, they reminded me a little of the way I draw. They showed that you could make appealing human characters.

We're trying to make employees more conscious of what they are buying.

With other people she can play humans. With me, it's completely non-human characters.

Each time I've worked with Johnny, he's something different. He's interested in being a character and not necessarily interested in his persona, and I find it very exciting to work with actors like that. He's really willing to take risks that don't have to do with image or money. And each time is just different and better. It's great to find people like that you can communicate with on an almost subconscious level.

There's just something visceral about moving a puppet frame by frame. There's a magical quality about it. Maybe you can get smoother animation with computers, but there's a dimension and emotional quality to this kind of animation that fits these characters and this story.

There's a roughness and a surprising nature to most B movies that you don't get in classic films-something more immediate. I never chose those movies to leave impressions in my brain, they just did.

It was a very beautiful. It is a beautiful combination because it matches up so well, that's a tribute to the animators.

It's two thirds cheaper than other animated films. As animated films go this is low budget.

It's almost the best cast I think I've ever worked with. The voices are so distinctive, they really nailed their characters. ... For me, in this particular case, it almost becomes more like a live-action movie, because their voices are so strong.

It's funny, because 'Nightmare' wasn't a real success when it came out ...

My kid is a product of the fast computer lifestyle.

The good thing about animation is that you can affect it. If something is not working, then you just fix it.

The problem with film is you never know when you're going to be able to make a film so you can't have people waiting around for you. Sometimes it's fun to work with the same people and work with new people and mix it up.

The great thing about visual horror films is there's real potential for strong, beautiful imagery. It's the one genre that really lends itself to creating strong images. And I've always loved that idea of windmills - your mind aimlessly spinning.

People always think I get really good reviews, but I don't. That's why I don't go on the Internet much - because you can go down a dark hole looking at stuff. Once, I clicked on my name and freaked out. It's too bizarre, it's too weird, it's too unsettling.

You can learn a lot from children because they see things new every day. That's the beauty of what you want to achieve as an artist - seeing things in a different way. Kids are constantly saying things that are funny and surprising and their observations are just... you know, they're like little artists themselves.

Technology is technology and then art form and people's creativity is another thing. Anything that helps an artist do anything - great! Technology for technology sake doesn't mean much to me anyway.

3D is great, but I just think of it as another tool, like colour or music or sound. It has the potential to add another emotional layer to certain things if you use it right. But it's not the saviour [of the movies], the be all and end all, the reason to do something.

I'm not a big fan of spiders, rats, especially if they're like - I got up one morning on a holiday recently, and there was a centipede in the bed that big. I wasn't very happy about that.

First of all, you make a movie that you want to see and then you just hope for the best.

That's what I always loved about [Federico] Fellini's films: You see the weird joy of the weird filmmaking family and the abstract craziness that goes along with it, and there's something about it that's quite beautiful.

I'm going to put that on my gravestone. "He created such a category of unwanted pop culture - - Famous for directing unwanted cultural references"

When I was a kid I always wanted to be a mad scientist. I don't know... a regular scientist just was no un.

I don't have a dog, because I travel too much. I don't want to just leave it abandoned.

For me, fantasy has always been a means of exploring reality: it explores the fact that your internal life, your dreams and the weird images and the things that come to you are things that are actually important tools for dealing with real issues.

If you want people to leave you alone then appearing to be crazy is a good thing. If you're walking down the street talking to yourself people tend to give you a wide berth! But I've always been blessed with being easily ignored or avoided. I think maybe it's because people think I look a little crazy.

A lot of things you see as a child remain with you you spend a lot of your life trying to recapture the experience.

Stain Boy Of all the super heroes, the strangest one by far, doesn't have a special power, or drive a fancy car. next to Superman and batman, I guess he must seem tame. But to me he is quite special, and Stain Boy is his name. He can't fly around tall buildings, or outrun a speeding train, the only talent he seems to have is to leave a nasty stain. Sometimes I know it bothers him, that he can't run or swim or fly, and because of this one ability, his dry cleaning bill is sky-high.

He can't fly around tall buildings, or outrun a speeding train, the only talent he seems to have is leaving a nasty stain!

One of the things that we were trying to do with this show was the complexities of relationships and love. There is both passion and longing and a bittersweet quality to it that is a part of life.

I had never really done something that was more of a horror film, and its funny, because those are the kind of movies that I like probably more than any other genre. The script had images in it that I liked.

I always wonder why some people see things as weird and some people don't.

I'm a happy-go-lucky manic-depressive. It does get very deep and dark for me, and it gets scary at times when I feel I can't pull out of it. But I don't consider myself negative-negative. I'm positive-negative.

Most people say about graveyards: "Oh, it's just a bunch of dead people. It's creepy." But for me, there's an energy to it that it not creepy, or dark. It has a positive sense to it.

Unwisely, Santa offered a teddy bear to James, unaware he had been mauled by a grizzly earlier this year.

But she knows she has a curse on her, a curse she cannot win. For if someone gets too close to her, the pins stick further in.

Son, are you happy? I don't mean to pry, but do you dream of Heaven? Have you ever wanted to die?

The Girl With Many Eyes One day in the park I had quite a surprise. I met a girl who had many eyes. She was really quite pretty (and also quite shocking!) and I noticed she had a mouth, so we ended up talking. We talked about flowers, and her poetry classes, and the problems she'd have if she ever wore glasses. It's great to know a girl who has so many eyes, but you really get wet when she breaks down and cries.

Staring Girl I once knew a girl who would just stand there and stare. At anyone or anything, she seemed not to care She'd stare at the ground, She'd stare at the sky. She'd stare at you for hours, and you'd never know why. But after winning the local staring contest, she finally gave her eyes a well-deserved rest.

Everything in this room is edible. Even I'm edible. But, that would be called canibalism. It is looked down upon in most societies.

Voodoo Girl Her skin is white cloth, and she's all sewn apart and she has many colored pins sticking out of her heart. She has many different zombies who are deeply in her trance. She even has a zombie who was originally from France. But she knows she has a curse on her, a curse she cannot win. For if someone gets too close to her, the pins stick farther in.

Mayor: How horrible our Christmas will be! Jack Skellington: *No.* [the Mayor switches to his upset face] Jack Skellington: How *jolly*! Mayor: Oh. How *jolly* our Christmas will be

And in that one grey hair I saw my whole life and I said "I think I need a hair.

Minister: Welcome, brother! Do you reject Satan and all his works? Bunny Breckinridge: Sure.

My name is Jimmy, but my friends just call me the hideous penguin boy.

And I Jack, the Pumpkin King, have grown so tired of the same old thing...

It's very nice to have someone that you can have a completely abstract conversation with and leave the room, feel like everything's fine, and then realize that if you pick it apart, you have absolutely no idea what either of you said.

I remember being forced to go to Sunday school for a number of years, even though my parents were not religious. No one was really religious; it was just the framework. There was no passion for it. No passion for anything. Just a quiet, kind of floaty, kind of semi-oppressive, blank palette that youre living in.

Good morning starshine the earth says hello....

I've found that the people who play villains are the nicest people in the world and people who play heroes are jerks.

Half the fun is plan to plan

I was never interested in what everybody else was interested in. I was very interiorized. I always felt kind of sad.

I don't really dream, I space out during the day - that's one of my problems wonder off when someone's talking to me. I can't remember any dreams in my life. There's so much strange in real life that it often seems like a dream.

One of the things I loved about the musical was that you listened to the soundtrack and it told you the story.

Stick Boy liked Match Girl, He liked her a lot. He liked her cute figure, he thought she was hot. But could a flame ever burn for a match and a stick? It did quite literally; he burned up quick.

It's really nice to work with people who understand and really love the artistry of building sets, it's great.

I always felt that Hollywood has a way of making you feel outside.

My diagnosis," he said "for better or worse, is that your son is the result of an old pharaoh's curse.

They took a baseball bat and whacked open his head. Mummy Boy fell to the ground; he finally was dead. Inside of his head were no candy or prizes, just a few stray beetles of various sizes.

It's great when you know somebody and they keep surprising you.