Willem Dafoe Quotes

I'm interested in new worlds, new universes, new challenges. I always said the only reason to make a film is not for the result but for what you learn for the next one.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Every time you do something, make something, it's final in a way, but it's not. It immediately raises a great set of questions. And if you become a question addict, which I am, you immediately have something you need to pursue.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.

I've worked with a lot of first time directors; in fact, I enjoy it because there is a certain beginner's mind that they bring into a project that isn't loaded with the way things have been done before. There's a certain freedom to it.

My theory in anything you do is to keep exploring, keep digging deeper to find new stuff.

Every time I do a project, it always comes with a level of discomfort and not knowing how to do it.

People ask me, 'Don't you ever run out of ideas?' Well, on the first place, I don't use ideas. Every time I have an idea, it's too limiting and usually turns out to be a disappointment. But I haven't run out of curiosity.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish. I've always wished that for myself.

Every time I start the next movie, it's as exciting as the first time.

I think I've always been slightly addicted to not repeating myself. When you're doing something the first time around, it's often the best time. I think 'Blank Project' is about carrying on. Its that thing where you're making something because you have to, but you don't know how or why.

Every time I do one I feel like I've never really quite learned anything. I always find that when I'm making a film, I find it a little bit like I'm doing it for the first time.

The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance - the idea that anything is possible.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

I never was the battle rapper. That was never my thing. I always felt like it's enough room for everybody to do their thing. I like bringing new energy, re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, every time I come out.

I mean, I love L.A. - I love living here. But I wish that we could make things without the need to hit a home run every single time. It's a unique thing to Hollywood that if you don't do that every time, then you're considered a failure. But it's like, 'Well, are you making movies to be successful? Or are you making movies to learn something?'

I always imagined that I would learn something each time that I would take to a new project, then I realized that each new project poses a completely different challenge.

We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee to fail intelligently... to experiment over and over again and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.

Everything in life can be tiring and tiresome if we don't have the ability to look at it as if it's the first time we've ever done it.

I love fools' experiments. I am always making them.

I'm always tryin' to do something new, tryin' to look like a beginner.

If someone is always to blame, if every time something goes wrong someone has to be punished, people quickly stop taking risks. Without risks, there can't be breakthroughs.

While we would love to have no criticism, probably if we had no critique, we wouldn't be doing anything meaningful.

Yeah, I like to keep myself interested - I'll kind of throw myself into some area that I don't completely know or understand, that I'm not adept at, so I'm forced to swim in order to stay afloat. There's a good feeling that comes from that.

I love the new technology. New things give you a reason to want to go to the studio. New challenges mean you have to keep up, you know?