Dr Kaufman Quotes

“Her first really great role, the one that cemented the "Jean Arthur character," was as the wisecracking big-city reporter who eventually melts for country rube Gary Cooper in Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). It was the first of three terrific films for Capra: Jean played the down-to-earth daughter of an annoyingly wacky family in Capra's rendition of Kaufman and Hart's You Can't Take It With You (1938), and she was another hard-boiled city gal won over by a starry-eyed yokel in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). "Jean Arthur is my favorite actress," said Capra, who had successfully worked with Stanwyck, Colbert and Hepburn. " ... push that neurotic girl ... in front of the camera ... and that whining mop would magically blossom into a warm, lovely, poised and confident actress." Capra obviously recognized that Jean was often frustrated in her career choice.”

— Eve Golden

“(Popular singer Eddie Fisher, appearing on This is Show Business, told Kaufman that women refused to date him because he looked so young.)
Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars up to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the construction of the Mount Palomar telescope, an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope - Mr. Fisher, if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn't be able to detect my interest in your problem.”

— George S. Kaufman

“Kaufman almost smiled at the perfection of its horror. He felt an offer of insanity tickling the base of his skull, tempting him into oblivion, promising a blank indifference to the world.”

— Clive Barker

“Kaufman calculated the risks of his situation: the mathematics of panic.”

— Clive Barker

“What I always say is that we're the illegitimate children of Andy Kaufman and Jerry Lewis.”

— Kevin McDonald

“It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.”

— Sam Rockwell

“I know Charlie Kaufman really well, for instance. Charlie Kaufman starts a story, and he has no freaking idea where he's going. None. Zero. And he doesn't want to know, because there's a little bit of death in that.”

— Stephen Gaghan

“I've always been a fan of Andy Kaufman.”

— Matthew Gray Gubler

“Because I just loved to spend two years of my life in the company of Andy Kaufman and other characters.”

— Milos Forman

“I really loved Andy Kaufman growing up, like every comedy person does. I like when sometimes the audience isn't quite sure what's supposed to be happening right then and that sort of unsafe feeling, as long as you're not punishing them.”

— Mike O'Brien

“I had a wonderful time playing Dr. Kaufman in Tomorrow Never Dies. It was a real Bond villain, over the top, almost laughable but dangerous.”

— Vincent Schiavelli

“I was heavily influenced by Andy Kaufman and Steven Wright.”

— David Cross

“There is no way you can share your inner self because you are an object of contempt to yourself. When you are contemptible to yourself, you are no longer in you. To feel shame is to feel exposed in a diminished way. When you're an object to yourself, you turn your eyes inward, watching and scrutinizing every minute detail of behavior. This internal critical observation is excruciating. It generates a tormenting self-consciousness that Kaufman describes as "creating a binding and paralyzing effect upon the self." This paralyzing internal monitoring causes withdrawal, passivity and inaction. The severed parts of the self are projected in relationships.”

— John Bradshaw

“Another dynamic aspect of the sexual conversion of basic needs is the pleasure of sexual orgasm itself. When one is shamed through abandonment, the pain is deep and profound. One feels worthless; one feels painfully diminished and exposed. When one experiences sexual stimulation and climax, one has available an all-encompassing and powerful pleasure. This pleasure can take the place of any other need. In a poignant passage, Kaufman sums up the process of converting all needs into sexuality. He writes: A young boy who learns never to need anything emotionally from his parents is ... faced with a dilemma whenever he feels young, needy or otherwise insecure. If masturbating has been his principle source of good feeling ... he may resort to masturbation in order to restore good feelings about self at times when he is experiencing needs quite unrelated to sexuality.”

— John Bradshaw

“Of course, the whole Andy Kaufman angle was classic. I'm real proud of that. I mean that is something people are still talking about 20 years later, making movies about and that sort of thing. I mean not a day goes by that someone doesn't mention Andy Kaufman to me.”

— Jerry Lawler

“After I defended my title the first time when I beat Sarah Kaufman, I went back to my room, and my friend ordered all these trays of hot wings. They came into the room, and the little hotel sheet thing was draped over it, and I go to open it up, and it's breaded and boneless. I cried.”

— Ronda Rousey

“I think Andy Kaufman is to comedy what the Velvet Underground was to music - it's like, 80 thousand records sold, but everybody who bought one started a band.”

— Courtney Love

“I think that Phil Kaufman is one of the best directors that I have come across.”

— Clive Owen

“I was raised with 'Laurel and Hardy' and 'I Love Lucy' and Jerry Lewis, and I just loved it. And I had a friend in high school and we would just laugh all day and put on skits. You know, it's the Andy Kaufman thing or the Marty Short thing where you're performing in your bedroom for yourself.”

— Steve Martin

“Baby, Andy once said that beauty is a sign of intelligence.'
She turns slowly to look at me. 'Who, Victor? Who? Andy who?' She coughs, blowing her nose. 'Andy Kaufman? Andy Griffith? Who in the hell told you this? Andy Rooney?'
'Warhol,' I say softly, hurt. 'Baby ...”

— Bret Easton Ellis

“The result is a twitching convulsion of vicious drivel passing itself off as a movie, which can be best appreciated by the kind of people who dig Showgirls, the Saw franchise and Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman flicks.”

— Rex Reed

“I've collected Andy Warhol art for years now I have two portraits of myself done by Steve Kaufman.”

— David Caruso

“His (Lloyd Kaufman) string of low-budget, lowbrow horror comedies stretching back to the '80s has been cited as influence by Peter Jackson, the Farrelly Brothers, Quentin Tarantino, Takashi Miike, and Guillermo Del Toro, just to cite a few prominent examples.”

— Lou Lumenick

“Through real-life stories, Kristin Kaufman illustrates the core idea of being present in the moment and opening oneself up to new ideas in order to become an authentic leader in life.”

— Stephen R. Covey

“I took my portrait that Kaufman did of me home from the Saturday Night Live TV set.”

— Eddie Murphy

“The prospect of being able to work on a Kaufman film with him directing was just too good to be true.”

— Elijah Wood

“They say that art comes from the soul. The more drama in an artist's life, the more he can draw on for his art. Van Gogh and Picasso had troubled souls, but poor Steve Kaufman has been shot once, stabbed 3 times - all by women. That is a lot of drama for great art.”

— Robin Leach

“When I met Steve Kaufman, I thought he was Gene Simmons, but what an artist talent he is. He will be an art force in the art world to deal with.”

— Roy Lichtenstein

“I remember Steve Kaufman as the artist on Saturday Night Live doing the Pop Art portraits for the show.”

— Joe Piscopo

“What Mr. Kaufman and his team are after is less a portrait of any one person than one of the ethos of a place. In the deliberate, simple staging ... in which eight radiantly clean-scrubbed performers embody 60 different people against a bare-bones set, 'Laramie' often brings to mind 'Our Town,' the beloved Thornton Wilder study of life, love and death in parochial New Hampshire.”

— Ben Brantley

“This is a vision Kaufman and Broad shares with Henry Cisneros, and together we have the resources and expertise to make vital new neighborhoods a reality.”

— Bruce Karatz

“I was told David Letterman and Kaufman had heart attacks on the same day: David Letterman's heart attack was at a hospital in NYC. Kaufman's heart attack was at the red light district in Amsterdam, Holland. I think Kaufman had more fun.
You're a great artist. I just love the way you painted my portrait.”

— Howard Stern

“[Richard Crossley's] previous bird guide, for ID'ing Eastern birds, is the most imaginative, original attempt to re-envision the birding guide and set his approach apart from that of Sibley, Kaufman, Peterson, Nat'l Geo, and the other bibles in the field.”

— James Wolcott

“Every year Steve Kaufman supports the charity "Love Ride" by donating a painting to this cause.”

— Jay Leno

“Magicians are definitely more arrogant. They're kind of like "Abra Kadabra, you're an idiot," they don't let you in on the joke. Comedians, you're always in on the joke unless it's Andy Kaufman.”

— Jim Carrey

“I have 12 paintings of Kaufman art. He is an amazing artist.”

— John Travolta

“Even if I don't see Brooklyn I have to see Anomolisa, because it's Charlie Kaufman. No one is doing things that they should't be doing more in cinema than Charlie Kaufman. This is how I look at it: he had an incredible story that was going to resonate regardless, but just shooting that movie is too easy for Charlie Kaufman.”

— Bun B

“It's a lonely world, being independent, and they can come away with the idea that if Lloyd Kaufman can make movies with people getting their heads squashed, with hard-bodied lesbians, women masturbating with pickles, graphic diarrhea, and singing and dancing chicken zombies - if he can do that for 40 years and put his kids through Yale, Columbia, and Duke - if that idiot can do it, anybody can do it.”

— Lloyd Kaufman

“I was good friends with Frank Sinatra, I heard Steve Kaufman painting his portrait, so I asked Steve to paint my portrait.”

— Lee Iacocca