Quotes by David Cronenberg

“I dont have a moral plan, Im a Canadian.”

“All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize theyre stereotypes because theyre true.”

“Everybodys a mad scientist, and life is their lab. Were all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.”

“Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.”

“You have to believe in God before you can say there are things that man was not meant to know. I dont think theres anything man wasnt meant to know. There are just some stupid things that people shouldnt do.”

“The way a child discovers the world constantly replicates the way science began. You start to notice whats around you, and you get very curious about how things work. How things interrelate. Its as simple as seeing a bug that intrigues you. You want to know where it goes at night; who its friends are; what it eats.”

“I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation. Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face. Just because youre making a horror film doesnt mean you cant make an artful film.”

“When youre in the muck you can only see muck. If you somehow manage to float above it, you still see the muck but you see it from a different perspective. And you see other things too. Thats the consolation of philosophy.”

“I dont think that the flesh is necessarily treacherous, evil, bad. It is cantankerous, and it is independent. The idea of independence is the key. It really is like colonialism. The colonies suddenly decide that they can and should exist with their own personality and should detach from the control of the mother country. At first the colony is perceived as being treacherous. Its a betrayal. Ultimately, it can be seen as the separation of a partner that could be very valuable as an equal rather than as something you dominate.”

“My dentist said to me the other day, Ive enough problems in my life, so why should I see your films?”

“A History of More Violence? ... I think not. That reminds me of somebodys joke about Gandhi - Gandhi 2: Even More Non-Violent. ”

“The Road to Perdition.”

“The graphic novel is much more violent.”

“Theres a certain intimacy involved. You have to get very close to the person whos threatening you. Its the opposite of what your instinct is.”

“if you want the exhilaration of seeing the bad guys go down, then you have to accept the consequences.”

“I wrote a script that I thought had a lot of potential,”

“I wasnt interested in abstracting violence,”

“Ive been to screenings where people laugh at certain points and can see that they are entertained. But this movie is the furthest thing from ironic. If you are entertained, if you laugh, I hope you would ask yourself why. I would hope to make a movie in which the audience questions everything.”

“Its a funny movie, too. People may wonder whats going on when they hear that about a movie that has the title A History of Violence . I think once they see it, theyll get it.”

“We joked about that on the set. There was a sense this was a portrait of a marriage in all kinds of ways, especially under duress.”