Quotes from Harmony Korine

I've always - honestly - never thought of myself as an independent director.

I always wanted the films to play in malls, and I wanted as many people as possible to see them. I never want them to be marginalized in the kind of rarefied, elitist world. I always have hopes that the films will permeate culture in a big way. A lot of times, I'm wrong, but it's always the hope.

I had these experiences as a kid; I remember certain things happening in school that were horrifying that I would see, certain things of violence or certain things of cruelty, but around that, something might happen afterwards to cause everyone to laugh, and that always blew me away.

When I'm directing films, I mostly try to create an environment on set that mimics what's in my mind as to the tone and feel of things. I try to create a place where you feel that anything's possible.

I was born 'Harmony,' and it was weird because when I was a little kid, I was picked on so much that when I was 13, I changed my name to Harmful. I thought it was a tougher name, so I had it legally changed. And then, I don't know, it just didn't seem to catch on, so... legally, my name is still Harmful, but I just said I'll go back to Harmony.

I always get sick of these conversations where people are so obsessed with pixels, with high definition, and even with technology in general. I find it just dull and heartless. And so I wanted to use only the worst machines.

I was free when I was 12 because I got my first skateboard. I've been free ever since.

When I was a kid, I loved Nicholas brothers films. It was like skateboarding. Even Gene Kelly: I always preferred him to Fred Astaire, just because he was more athletic, like skateboarding.

Skateboarding was everything to us growing up. It changes the way you see the world: you spend all day looking for ditches.

It's hard to say things without coming off in a certain way, but at a young age, I felt very driven. All I ever wanted to be is a soldier of cinema.

What makes Gucci Mane Gucci Mane is like what made Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra - it's just him. He's trap's Frank Sinatra.

I have no desire for any type of introspection at all. I don't ever ask myself any questions. I don't want answers.

I tried working odd jobs that had nothing to do with creating, and it was difficult for me. In the end, I just always loved movies. When I'm making a film, I feel most alive, like I'm doing the right thing, and I'm in the place where I need to be.

I never liked socially conscious rap. I like rap that's physical, that's about a beat and bass and repetition.

I purposefully try to make films in that grey area, where things are morally ambiguous. It's like life: good people do horrible things, and bad people do good things, and there's beauty in horror and horror in beauty.

What I remember myself from films, and what I love about films, is specific scenes and characters.

Ever since I was little, I would just make stories up in my mind. It was based on people I saw in the street or someone I would talk to, or I would hear a specific voice.

I don't make movies for the same reason that a lot of people do. I make films because I need to see them exist in a very specific way.

I never cared about making one coherent masterpiece with a conventional narrative. I always wanted my movies to have images falling from all directions in a vaudevillian way. If you didn't like what was happening in one scene, you could just snooze through it until the next scene.

My knock with filmmaking is the whole bureaucracy around it, so in some ways, staying outside of it is easier for me.

After 100 years, films should be getting really complicated. The novel has been reborn about 400 times, but it's like cinema is stuck in the birth canal.

The first time I hung out with [David Blaine], he took me to this condemned building, and it had a pizza oven and he crawled into the pizza oven and turned the heat on to 400 degrees or something like that, and he stayed in it for I guess a half hour. He came out, and except for one or two second-degree burns, he was unscathed. You meet a lot of musicians and filmmakers and actors, but it's rare to meet someone who can step inside a pizza oven and take the heat. I was intrigued by that.

What I remember myself from films, and what I love about films, is specific scenes and characters.

If Wagner lived today, he would probably work with film instead of music. He already knew back then that the Great Art Form would include a sort of fourth dimension; it was really film he was talking about.