There are a couple of stories that I have in my head for which I feel like I should collaborate with people. So yes, if I would like to direct, I would also like to write whatever I direct.
Ingratitude is monstrous; and for the multitude to be ingrateful were to make a monster of the multitude; of which we being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members.
When feet doesn't want to hold you, you climb with your head. Maybe it isn't the natural order of things, but isn't it better to walk with your head than to think with your feet, as it happens so frequently?
And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.
God did not create woman from man’s head, that he should command her, nor from his feet, that she should be his slave, but rather from his side, that she should be near his heart.
I've never been a puppeteer, I conceive and I write and I design and I direct. And not just puppets. I direct actors, I direct dancers, I direct singers, I direct films. I also direct puppeteers. I'm really a theatre maker, but there's not a word for that.
The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected - and by physical relations of fascinating complexity.
When we have four or five players out it's very difficult to get any continuity at this stage in our development. If I pull the blanket over my head my feet get cold, and if I push it over my feet my head gets cold.
I made a life-size drawing of King Kong's head which was about eight feet-by- six feet. I tried to measure the head (scaled to other things in the movie I could estimate the size of) that was in the movie in the early '30s, and I liked that I was making something "life-size" that was kind of a fictional thing.
It's funny because I've resisted acting as a career for most of my life. But both my parents told me if I ever want to direct, I should act first because no director should direct until they know what it's like to be in the actor's shoes.
The human head is bigger than the globe. It conceives itself as containing more. It can think and rethink itself and ourselves from any desired point outside the gravitational pull of the earth. It starts by writing one thing and later reads itself as something else. The human head is monstrous.
If you want to be loved, keep your head on your shoulders and feet on the ground. There is nothing wrong in that. I do the same, and others should also follow this motto.
It is a monstrous thing to force a child to learn Latin or Greek or mathematics on the ground that they are an indispensable gymnastic for the mental powers. It would be monstrous even if it were true.
I think every writer has got to direct. If you don't direct, you can't protect your work. The only way to ensure that it's going to be as close as possible to what you put down on paper - and what you see and hear in your head - is to do it yourself.
You will find that success in life comes far easier when you maintain a cool head and a warm heart, rather than a hot head and cold feet.
'Yea and I beheld Sisyphus in strong torment, grasping a monstrous stone with both his hands. He was pressing thereat with hands and feet, and trying to roll the stone upward toward the brow of the hill. But oft as he was about to hurl it over the top, the weight would drive him back, so once again to the plain rolled the stone, the shameless thing. And he once more kept heaving and straining, and the sweat the while was pouring down his limbs, and the dust rose upwards from his head.