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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.

-Tim Burton

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For Me, Fantasy Has

Tim Burton

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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.

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I Always Said That I'm Not Into Mass-marketing Things. If There's One Thing That Looks Cool, That's Fine By Me. I'm Not Interested In A Whole Bunch Of Stuff.

I Am Not A Dark Person And I Don't Consider Myself Dark.

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.

I Try Not To Go Back In Retrospect And Say Oh, I Shouldn't Have Done This Or Shouldn't Have Done That. You Make Your Decisions And You Live By Them.

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.

Son, Are You Happy? I Don't Mean To Pry, But Do You Dream Of Heaven? Have You Ever Wanted To Die?

Certain Things Leave You In Your Life And Certain Things Stay With You. And That's Why We're All Interested In Movies- Those Ones That Make You Feel, You Still Think About. Because It Gave You Such An Emotional Response, It's Actually Part Of Your Emotional Make-up, In A Way.

That's Why I Like Old Monster Movie Actors, Because They Transform Into Different Characters Or Creatures.

One Of The Things I Loved About The Musical Was That You Listened To The Soundtrack And It Told You The Story.

Drawing Is Exercise For A Restless Imagination.

One Person's Craziness Is Another Person's Reality.

I've Found That The People Who Play Villains Are The Nicest People In The World And People Who Play Heroes Are Jerks.

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.

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.

There's Something Quite Exciting When You Have A History With Somebody And You See Them Do New And Different Things.

Different Things

When You Don’t Have Many Friends And You Don’t Have A Social Life You’re Kind Of Left Looking At Things, Not Doing Things. There’s A Weird Freedom In Not Having People Treat You Like You’re Part Of Society Or Where You Have To Fulfill Social Relationships.

Even If You're Doing Something That The Studio Sends You, Or Something That's Based On A Book Or Story, At The End Of It All, You Try To Make Whatever It Is Your Own. This Is Based On My Love Of Horror Movies. Everything Is Based On Something, In Some Way.

Movies Are Like An Expensive Form Of Therapy For Me.

I Was Never Interested In What Everybody Else Was Interested In. I Was Very Interiorized. I Always Felt Kind Of Sad.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Like Actors Who Like To Change And Transform To Other Things.

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.

When I Was A Kid I Always Wanted To Be A Mad Scientist. I Don't Know... A Regular Scientist Just Was No One.

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.

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.

People Told Me I Couldn't Kill Nicholson, So I Cast Him In Two Roles And Killed Him Off Twice.

Live People Ignore The Strange And Unusual. I Myself, Am Strange And Unusual.

And I Jack, The Pumpkin King, Have Grown So Tired Of The Same Old Thing.

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.

My Parents Suffered From That Ideal Of A Perfect Nuclear Family. They Found That A Difficult Pressure, I Think.

Everything In This Room Is Edible. Even I'm Edible. But, That Would Be Called Canibalism. It Is Looked Down Upon In Most Societies.

A Journalist In America Told Us That We'd [with Johhny Depp] Been Working Together For 10 Decades, So We're A Lot Older Than We Look! We Actually Knew Each Other Before The Invention Of Cinema, So We Have Quite A Good, Long Relationship.

I Did Some Sports. It Was A Bit Frustrating. I Wasn't The Greatest Sports Person.

He Can't Fly Around Tall Buildings, Or Outrun A Speeding Train, The Only Talent He Seems To Have Is Leaving A Nasty Stain!

I Have No Idea What Happens, But I Do Respond To Other Cultures That Treat Life With A Much More Positive Approach. It Teaches - Especially When You're A Child - It Teaches You To Be Afraid Of Everything, You Feel Like Something Bad Is Always Going To Happen. As To Where That Other Way Seems A Much More Spiritual And Positive Approach.

It's Always An Interesting Challenge To See If You Can Create A Character That's Got Emotion.

Minister: Welcome, Brother! Do You Reject Satan And All His Works? Bunny Breckinridge: Sure.

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.

I'm Going To Put That On My Gravestone. "he Created Such A Category Of Unwanted Pop Culture - Famous For Directing Unwanted Cultural References".

Some People Get Therapy, Some People Get To Make Movies.

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.

Half The Fun Is Plan To Plan

There's Something About Taking A Classic Movie That People Love And Doing Another Version Of That, You're Setting Yourself Up For A Mistake.

No Matter What You Go Through With The Business Side Or The Hollywood Side At The End Of It All, When You Are There On The Set, It Is Your Thing. So It Is Your Own Private World And That's Great. That's Where You Have That Bubble To Create Something In.

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.

Art And Science

Johnny Depp Is Somebody I Really Love Working With Because He Doesn't Care How He Looks. He Wants To Become Weird Characters And I Like That.

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.

If You Ever Had A Pet, With Me It Was A Dog, With That Sort Of Unconditional Love That Only Dogs Can Give, People Can't Do That; That Sort Of Thing Where It's Very Powerful, It's Kind Of Your First Love And Your First Real Relationship, And Usually Your First Experience With Death.

What I Feel That "alice In Wonderland" Did For Me And Other People In Exploring Your Dream State, And Using Fantasy In Your Dream State To Deal With Real Issues And Problems In Your Life. People Like To Separate Those Things But The Fact Is That They Are Things That Are Intertwined.

My Kid Is A Product Of The Fast Computer Lifestyle.

Adults Forget That Kids Are Their Own Best Censors.

The Good Thing About Animation Is That You Can Affect It. If Something Is Not Working, Then You Just Fix It.

I Think The Thing Is That You're Very Affected By Your Early Life, And I Think That If You Ever Had That Feeling Of Outsider, Or Loneliness Or Whatever, It Just Doesn't Leave You. You Can Be Happy And Successful, Whatever, But I Think That Thing Stays Inside Of You. It Doesn't Ever Really Leave You. You Kind Of Always Will Have That.

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.

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 Never Sort Of Really Regret Anything Because You Make Your Choices And I Like To Stand By Them.

First Of All, You Make A Movie That You Want To See And Then You Just Hope For The Best.

Hoping For The Best

If Youve Ever Had That Feeling Of Loneliness, Of Being An Outsider, It Never Quite Leaves You. You Can Be Happy Or Successful Or Whatever, But That Thing Still Stays Within You.

I Always Wonder Why Some People See Things As Weird And Some People Don't.

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 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 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.

Mr. Smith Yelled At The Doctor, What Have You Done To My Boy? He's Not Flesh And Blood, He's Aluminum Alloy!" The Doctor Said Gently, What I'm Going To Say Will Sound Pretty Wild. But You're Not The Father Of This Strange Looking Child. You See, There Still Is Some Question About The Child's Gender, But We Think That Its Father Is A Microwave Blender.

I Worked At Disney Many Years Ago. They Just Let Me Sit In A Room For A Couple Of Years And Draw Whatever I Wanted To Draw, So It's A Very Personal Thing To Me. Drawing And Everything You Do There Is Something Meaningful And Personal.

[childbirth] Is The Weirdest Thing I've Ever Seen. It's Like An 'alien' Movie. I Started Crying, It Was So Emotional ... I Was There In The Room But I Wasn't Planning On Doing Much. But Then I See This Blue Pinhead Come Out And I Think I Said To The Nurse, 'what The Hell Is That?' And Then It Turns Into This Round Red Thing In Seconds. It's Just Shocking.

Now 3d Is No Longer A Fad But I Don't Get All Crazy About It And Say That Everything Has Got To Be In 3d. It Is A Nice Tool, Like Color Or Sound Or Whatever. I Was Quite Intrigued And I Learned, 3d Opened Up A Lot Of Questions About How To Use It. I Think It Is Great. It's Like If A Movie Needs To Be In Black And White Then That's How I Will Shoot It. I See Color As Just Another Character Or Black And White As A Character.

Maybe It's Just In America, But It Seems That If You're Passionate About Something, It Freaks People Out. You're Considered Bizarre Or Eccentric. To Me, It Just Means You Know Who You Are.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anybody With Artistic Ambitions Is Always Trying To Reconnect With The Way They Saw Things As A Child.

I've Always Liked Monster Movies And I've Always Been Fascinated By - Again, Growing Up In A Culture Where Death Was Looked Upon As A Dark Subject And Living So Close To Mexico Where You See The Day Of The Dead With The Skeletons And It's All Humor And Music And Dancing And A Celebration Of Life In A Way. That Always Felt More Of A Positive Approach To Things. I Think I Always Responded To That More Than This Dark, Unspoken Cloud In The Environment I Grew Up In.

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.

Visions Are Worth Fighting For. Why Spend Your Life Making Someone Else's Dreams?

I Feel Any Time You Enter A Dream World It's Like You're Working Out Things, It's All Inside Your Mind And You're Working It Out, Be It Dorothy In The Wizard Of Oz, Or The Kids In Narnia, They Go Through This Weird Journey That's Not Real, And They're Going Through This Journey Psychologically. It's That Journey Of Discovery, Of Getting Onself Together, That Fantasy And Fairy Tales Are So Good At. And While Some People Still Look Upon Them As Completely Unrealistic, For Me They're More Real Than Most Things That Are Perceived As Real.

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 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.

Nobody Had His [ed Wood's] Style. That's Something I Try To Do In My Films. You Have Your Own Kind Of Cryptic Messages In There - Cryptic Things That Most People Wouldn't Understand But Are Important To You. Things That Kind Of Keep You Going Through The Process.

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.

I Grew Up Watching Monster Movies And Horror Movies, Which I Felt Were Like Fairy Tales And I Think This Always Spoke To Me. Something About That Is Symbolism - The Beauty And The Magic Which Helps Me Work With Film And Start Making Modern Fairy Tales.

When We Were Growing Up And Saw A Ray Harryhausen Movie, We Were Interested In How It Was Done. But Thank God We Got To Go Through The Magic Of Seeing It Before We Knew How It Was Done. You Were Able To Get This Beautiful, Pure, Visceral Response To Something Without Knowing Too Much About It.

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.

The Boy With Nails In His Eyes Put Up His Aluminum Tree. It Looked Pretty Strange Because He Couldn't Really See.

Good Morning Starshine The Earth Says Hello.

Once You Get Labeled, There's Nothing You Can Do About It.

My Name Is Jimmy, But My Friends Just Call Me The Hideous Penguin Boy.

You Know, Those Kinds Of Things In Your Life...movies You Try To Work Out Your Issues, Then You Realize Those Kinds Of Traumatic Issues Just Stay With You Forever And They Just Keep Reoccurring, And No Matter How Hard I Try To Get Them Out Of My Head, They Just Sort Of Stay There.

It's Good As An Artist To Always Remember To See Things In A New, Weird Way.

I Am The Shadow On The Moon At Night/filling Your Dreams To The Brim With Fright.

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.

Unwisely, Santa Offered A Teddy Bear To James, Unaware He Had Been Mauled By A Grizzly Earlier This Year.

I'm Gonna Go Live In A Cave, Just Completely Live In My Interior World.

I Don't Have A Dog, Because I Travel Too Much. I Don't Want To Just Leave It Abandoned.

Things You Grew Up Watching, They Just Stay With You. They Form What You Like To Do.

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.

Don't Worry About How You 'should' Draw It. Just Draw It The Way You See It.

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.

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.

There Was One Moment, And It Happened In School. I Had A Big Final Exam - We Were Supposed To Write A 20-page Report On This Book About Houdini. I Probably Would Have Loved Reading It, But I Didn't, So I Just Decided To Make A Little Super-8 Movie Based On It. I Tied Myself To The Railroad Tracks And All That. I Mean, This Is Kid Stuff, But It Impressed The Teacher, And I Got An A. And That Was Maybe My First Turning Point, When I Said, 'yeah, I Wouldn't Mind Being A Filmmaker.'

Anybody Who Knows Me Knows I Would Never Read A Comic Book. And I Certainly Would Never Read Anything Written By Kevin Smith.

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.

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.

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 A Lot Of Kids Feel Alone And Slightly Isolated And In Their Own World.

I Wasn't A Big Comic Book Reader. I Always Had Trouble Knowing Which Box To Read Next. I Was Always Reading From The Wrong Box. I Was Like, This Is A Comic Book That Doesn't Make Any Sense! I Think I Was Reading Them All Out Of Sequence.

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.

I Never Really Consider Myself As A Great Artist. I Just Always Like To Draw.

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.

I Always Liked Making Things, And Then I Fell Into Animation. And Then Luck Comes Into It As Well.

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 Always Liked Strange Characters.

Anybody Who Knows Me Knows I Would Never Read A Comic Book.

We All Know Interspecies Romance Is Weird.

I Always Treated The Science Thing And The Art Thing As Quite Similar Thematically.

It's Really Nice To Work With People Who Understand And Really Love The Artistry Of Building Sets, It's Great.

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.

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.

I Wouldn't Know A Good Script If It Bit Me In The Face.

I Like The Challenge Of Doing Things You Know That You Maybe Shouldn't Do.

And In That One Grey Hair I Saw My Whole Life And I Said "i Think I Need A Hair.

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.

It's Great When You Know Somebody And They Keep Surprising You.

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.

If I Had A Choice About Going To A Meeting At A Studio Or Changing A Nappy, I'd Choose The Nappy.

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