Latest Guillermo del Toro Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• What is fantastic for me is that the Romantic movement comes out as a counter balance to everything that has been accumulating since the Age of Reason. I think the downfall of imagination as a genre or as a perception starts with the Age of Reason, which says everything else that came before us, all those superstitions, all those myths, are childish.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Thinking, Imagination, Perception

• There are times when you are in despair, because in order not to betray who you are, you don't compromise, you don't make movies that would be very lucrative or prestigious or easily understood. And yet I stay attached to the most uncanny premises. It's never been easy.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Despair, Compromise, Easy

• If you can be that link to other people that came before you and the ones that come after, then you have to honor that link. If you are doing what somebody else tells you to do and you have success, it's horrible. And if you are doing what other people tell you to do and you fail, it's equally horrible.

  Guillermo del Toro

  People, Honor, Failing

• Oliver Stone will never be happy with the first take. He wants more than that. When you’re delivering your lines, he’ll stop you and tell you some kind of riddle about the character and you have to go away and figure that out. If you’re hoping for him to give you all the answers, then you’re in for a long day.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Character, Long, Giving

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

• For any actor to have Oliver Stone call him or her up… It’s a compliment. He expects you to be on your toes. If you’re not, he pokes at you until you react. He’s very provocative, creatively. It started like a lot of hard work, but it ended up a lot of fun.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Fun, Hard Work, Compliment

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

• Somebody said to me, in a very well-meaning way, at a screening, "We love the movie but it's too violent. If you tone down the violence you could reach a great audience of kids.".

  Guillermo del Toro

  Kids, Violence, Violent

  Source: www.theguardian.com

• I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter books, but I'd love to do one where one of the kids dies, or one of the main characters dies. I love for those things to have a little bit more tragedy.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Book, Character, Kids

  Source: www.theguardian.com

• I think we live our lives seeking the shortest route, the closest parking space - everything quick, cheap, fast. And it's not better. Two-thirds of the satisfaction of getting something is the process of getting it.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Thinking

  Source: www.theguardian.com

• When somebody says something I don't agree with, I say I'd rather not. It comes to the point where that is the strongest form of resistance. As a Mexican, it took me a long while to learn one word in English, "no". And that is the one word we have in common.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Long, Mexican, Common

  Source: www.theguardian.com

• The only true immortality is when you don't care if you die. The moment you stop giving credence to gain is when you become invulnerable to pain.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Pain, Giving, Care

  Source: www.theguardian.com

• I feel that we have, as Mexicans, two things: one, a natural distrust of institutions. I hate organised religion, I hate organised politics, I hate the idea of the military and the police. Because we grew up distrusting all these sacred institutions, the only thing you have left is a vague, national sense of impending doom. Why do we drink and how are we so merry? Because we know that pretty soon, our time's up. There is a sense of fatality that makes us pretty chirpy people. You try to live. The only reason that dying is important is that it gives life sense.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Hate, Military, People

  Source: www.theguardian.com

• I love monsters. If I go to a church, I'm more interested in the gargoyles than the saints. I really don't care much about the idea of normal - that's very abstract to me. I think that perfection is practically unattainable but imperfection is right at hand. So that's why I love monsters: because they represent a side of us we should actually embrace and celebrate.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Thinking, Perfection, Church

  Source: www.theguardian.com

• I find I'm waking up really early now, just to read. Waking up at ungodly hours. But I try to keep up, religiously. When I was a kid, it used to be a book a day. Then a book a week. Now it's like a book every two weeks. But I read every day.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Book, Kids, Trying

  Source: www.avclub.com

• It's the difference between a parable and a pamphlet. A parable discusses things that are relevant in the past, the future, and the present - regardless of the outcome in the present. A pamphlet, on the other hand, is completely concerned with affecting an outcome in the present, the most immediate present.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Past, Relevant, Concerned

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I really believe that in the larger sense, not only today but at all times, you only find yourself when you disobey. Disobedience is the beginning of responsibility, I think.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Believe, Responsibility, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

• When I stage a violent scene, I try for it to serve a purpose. I do love those things, the makeup effects. But I love them more with the monsters. I never was much of a gore guy. I've always enjoyed just creating monsters.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Makeup, Guy, Trying

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think that is the ultimate cowardice, when someone makes your choices for you in an institutional way. And you just say, "Well, I have no other option."

  Guillermo del Toro

  Thinking, Choices, Cowardice

  Source: www.avclub.com

• If we have a choice in how we die, I would say that's a privilege. I think we have a sort of prudish approach to death in the West, though certainly not in Mexico. In Mexico, it's a little bit freer. We're not so precious about it.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Thinking, Choices

  Source: www.avclub.com

• The idea for me is that if the movie connects with you the way I want it to connect with you, you should be experiencing both the horror and the wonder as a child would. From a child's point of view. When we're kids, brutality registers differently than when we are adults. Because as adults, we get too used to violence.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Children, Kids, Violence

  Source: www.avclub.com

• You can always go back to not making any money, and then you get the freedom. And I'm going to continue doing it, because it really is a fantastic sense of liberation.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Fantastic, Liberation

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I have "fat-guy syndrome." If they give me $50 million to make a movie, I'll try to make it look like it cost a hundred. If they give me $60 million, I'll try to make it look like it cost $120.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Giving, Trying

  Source: www.avclub.com

• The movies that I do are in love with cinema, and I try to show that I am in love with cinema. I want them to be, in other ways, drinking from other sources.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Drinking, Trying, Cinema

  Source: hollywoodchicago.com

• I try to find inspiration in books, paintings, illustrations and the one thing I try to avoid is just being inspired by other movies, because then you just are talking about movies in movies. I try to talk about movies that are culturally and spiritually a little more diverse.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Book, Inspiration, Illustration

  Source: hollywoodchicago.com

• I don't try to define the cosmos, I know it's unknowable, but I can understand my place in the world and my place in the universe through a mixture of Taoism, Catholicism, Zen or whatever I have at hand.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Hands, Taoism, Trying

  Source: hollywoodchicago.com

• I believe that pain can be a rite of passage into learning. I believe that the worse thing that can happen is the sin of banality and comfort. Those things are in my movies, but also my movies are quite the fruit of somebody who defines himself as an agnostic.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Pain, Believe, Comfort

  Source: hollywoodchicago.com