Errol Morris

Ecstatic absurdity: it's the confrontation with meaninglessness.

Despite all of our efforts to control something, the world is much, much more powerful than us, and more deranged even than us.

I believe it was probably less than ten minutes that went by from the invention of photography to the point where people realized that they could lie with photographs.

My advice to all interviewers is: Shut up and listen. It's harder than it sounds.

We all know that yellow journalism didn't just happen a week ago or a month ago, that yellow journalism has probably been with us as long as journalism has been with us.

I used to work as a private detective years and years ago.

But there's a big difference between, say, reporting on a story and simply making up a story.

I've never had any problem with crazy people. I like crazy people; I probably am a crazy person myself.

I think calling someone a character is a compliment.

But one of the amazing things about documentary is that you can remake it every time you make one. There is no rule about how a documentary film has to be made.

Certain kinds of intimacy emerge on a phone call that might never occur if you were sitting right next to the other person.

If everything was planned, it would be dreadful. If everything was unplanned, it would be equally dreadful.

People lie, and they always are very very creative in finding new ways to lie.

Forty years ago this country went down a rabbit hole in Vietnam and millions died. I fear we're going down a rabbit hole once again - and if people can stop and think and reflect on some of the ideas and issues in this movie, perhaps I've done some damn good here!

Listening to what people were saying wasn't even important. But it was important to look as if you were listening to what people were saying. Actually, listening to what people are saying, to me, interferes with looking as if you were listening to what people are saying.

But I can say what interests me about documentary is the fact that you don't know how the story ends at the onset - that you are investigating, with a camera, and the story emerges as you go along.

First of all, tabloid stories are some of the richest and most important stories that we have. There's nothing wrong, per se, with tabloid stories.

If you think you're going to create an unposed photograph, think again. There is no such thing.

Maybe existence is ultimately a lonely thing.

I think an interview, properly considered, should be an investigation. You shouldn't know what the interview will yield. Otherwise, why do it at all?

I don't believe truth is conveyed by style and presentation. I don't think that if it was grainy and full of handheld material, it would be any more truthful.

A movie is like a tip of an iceberg, in a way, because so little of what you do in connection with making a movie actually gets into the movie. Almost everything gets left behind.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility.

Photographs can reveal something to us, and they can also conceal things.

What's great about documentary, it seems to me, is that it can be experimental filmmaking. You have a license to do a lot of diverse things under the umbrella of 'documentary.'

When 'The Thin Blue Line' came out, I was criticized by many people for using reenactments, as if I wasn't dedicated to the truth because I filmed these scenes. That always and still seems to be nonsensical.

The proper route to an understanding of the world is an examination of our errors about it.

Films are neither true nor false. That includes my films, as well as others. They may make claims that are true or false, but films are too complex. They have too many ingredients.