Documentary Quotes

“If you were born with the ability to change someone’s perspective or emotions, never waste that gift. It is one of the most powerful gifts God can give—the ability to influence.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Hugh le Despencer the Elder was speaking to his son, Hugh le Despencer the Younger. He said, “Son, given that you are effeminate and lack manly qualities, I think that the way for you for you to improve your lot in life is to become the King’s Chamberlain.”
― Michael G. Kramer, Isabella Warrior Queen

“The Black Prince is entombed at Canterbury Cathedral. His effigy reads: “Such as thou art, sometimes was I, Such as I am, such thou shalt be, I thought little on hour of death, So long as I enjoyed breath, On earth I had great riches, Land, houses, great treasure, Horses money and gold, But now a wretched captive am I, Deep in the ground, lo I lie, My beauty great, is all quite gone, My flesh is wasted to the bone.”
― Michael G. Kramer, Isabella Warrior Queen

“If only their life could continue as it was it would be enough. It had always been enough for her, but never enough to keep him from righting wrongs of far wider consequences.”
― Leslie K. Simmons, Red Clay, Running Waters

“It is true we enjoy self-government, but we live in fear. We find ourselves in the paw of a lion. Convenience may induce him to crush us, and with a faint struggle, we may cease to be.”
― Leslie K. Simmons, Red Clay, Running Waters

“I came to Australia as a damaged grown up adult, and it took me years to heal, so my perspective of the national Australian pride is not full. It [assimilation] penetrates, it’s
accepted, it’s tolerated, and I think the third generation it is absorbed. I don’t know about the second generation, - Holocaust survivor, Kitia Altman”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“When we came and rented the North Perth home, my father had a little ice chest, and on top of the ice chest was a radio. And we were sitting at our lunch time on Sunday eating dinner after church, and my Mum says, ‘Look where we’ve ended up. We’ve got a table cloth on our table, we’ve got food on our plate, and we’re listening to music.’ That was a big thing for my mother. - Mrs Helen Doropoulos, Greece”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“It can be challenge enough to have to eat with myself.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“The problem is we are not eating food anymore, we are eating food like products. (Hungry For Change Film)”
― Alejandro Junger

“The paradox is that some of the most artistically valuable contemporary photographs are content with being photographs, are not under the same compulsion to pass themselves off - or pimp themselves out - as art. The simple truth is that the best exponents of the art of contemporary photography continue to produce work that fits broadly within the tradition of what Evans termed 'documentary style'.”
― Geoff Dyer, Working the Room: Essays and Reviews: 1999-2010

“I also knew you wouldn't remember this trip, because you're only five years old, and our pediatrician had told us that children don't starting building memories of things until after they turn six. When I realized that, that I was ten and you were only five, I thought, fuck. But of course I didn't say so out loud. I just thought, fuck, silently, to myself. I realized that I'd remember everything and you maybe wouldn't remember anything. I needed to find a way to help you remember, even if it was only through things I documented for you, for the future. And that's how I became a documentarist and a documentarian at the same time. (p 213)”
― Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive

“The best documentaries are independent. They don’t exist to serve interests, philanthropic or otherwise.”
― Nick Fraser

“My limitless ability to weave time and space does not make me a god - just a da-n good writer.”
― Edmund Alexander Sims, Constructs of a Maniacal Mind

“Documentary evidence says where there is smoke there is fire, be it holy smoke or otherwise.”
― Christina Engela, Blachart

“Atlantis was one name for an ancient civilization that went through a terrible catastrophe and that we now have the opportunity to not repeat the same mistakes. We have the opportunity to use our technology responsibly and to steward the earth rather than steer it into its own destruction.”
― David Wilcock

“The purpose of the research was to better understand all the stages Japanese international students encounter when studying abroad and to better ascertain their buyer behaviour when selecting foreign education”
― Peter Hanami, Gaman A Japanese Students Four Year Study Journey Australia

“One of the NECESSARILY ILLUSIONS for the general public is that we live in a capitalist economy, but the rich don’t believe that for a minute. They insist on a powerful state to protect them from market discipline. So if Goldman Sachs makes a risky transaction, they’re basically protected. If it crashes, they can run to the nanny state with their cap in hand and get bailed
out.”
― Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies

“But now I became fascinated by the chasm between who this person had been as Mary Claire Griffith at fifteen and who she'd become as Cleo Ray at twenty-five.”
― L.R. Dorn, The Anatomy of Desire

“I recently made my directorial debut in the category of duck documentary—in GIF format. I hope viewers don’t think my cinematic masterpiece goes on too long, because the extended version comes in at just over six seconds—which might be pushing the limits of modern attention spans.”
― Jarod Kintz, Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.

“The written word is greatest sacred documentation.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“When we are reading, a voice comes to us as in the dark and whispers, "Imagine!" Samuel Beckett

as told by Bill Moyer in the Foreword he wrote for, The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson. Afterword by Ann Patchett”
― Samuel Beckett

“Gaman is a documentary that revealed the four year study experience of a Japanese student who left Japan to study in Australia and then returned home with a foreign qualification”
― Peter Hanami, Gaman A Japanese Students Four Year Study Journey Australia

“Yuriko a Japanese student who left Japan in search of a dream, new skills, improved English and a new qualification to start a new career. The documentary was recorded over four years in Australia and Japan, it provides a holistic cultural profile of the journey of a Japanese international student”
― Peter Hanami, Gaman A Japanese Students Four Year Study Journey Australia

“I’m more of a documentary kind of gal,” Navi responded.
Finn let out a gagging sound. “That’s a thousand times worse.”
― Katherine McIntyre, Forged Decisions

“Today, millions of people from around the world are tuned in to this hundred-year-old courthouse, designed in the neoclassical style and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It's a building that stands as a proud symbol of American justice. Over the last several weeks a murder trial has been unfolding here, and the media attention it's gotten has been ferocious.”
― L.R. Dorn, The Anatomy of Desire

“i’m a displaced person on my way home,
in search for my home,
retracing bits of past,
looking for some recognisable traces of my past.”
― Jonas Mekas

“我不喜歡用議題或訊息這類詞彙來闡述或是被闡述作品。會被這類詞彙歸納的作品，鐵定是因為處理人的部分太弱了。沒有人的存在是為了故事或議題。我們只是那樣的活著——生命翻滾於那些樣態的活著。”
― Hirokazu Koreeda, 雲沒有回答: 高級官僚的生與死

“在製作紀錄片的時候，若事先用顏色區分對象為弱者與強者、善與惡的話，對製作人來說會很輕鬆。
決定行政、官僚為惡，從善良市民的角度告發。決定企業為惡，以貼近消費者的立場來描寫。
把這種「方便的圖像」嵌入到社會之中，反而有些事物會變得看不見。”
― Hirokazu Koreeda, 雲沒有回答: 高級官僚的生與死