25 Tim Burton Quotes on His Life, Creativity, and Philosophy

These top 25 Tim Burton quotes will give you insights into the person behind your favorite movies!

For those who don’t know, Tim Burton is the mastermind behind worldwide hits like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, and many more! His creative prowess knows no bounds, and he’s able to breathe life into every character and story he works on.

Tim Burton is a successful producer and animator, but he can’t escape judgment and misinterpretation from others. In fact, he feels like no one truly understands who he is, what he stands for, and what he wants to achieve.

Nonetheless, he continues to push forward with his visions and dreams—no matter how unconventional or out-of-the-box they might be. In his own way, Tim Burton teaches us to be unapologetically ourselves!

If you want to learn more about him, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve got the best and most meaningful Tim Burton quotes for you.

And don’t forget to check out these Nightmare Before Christmas quotes and Batman quotes.

Best Tim Burton Quotes

1. “Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else’s dreams?”

2. “One person’s craziness is another person’s reality.”

3. “I can’t remember any dreams in my life. There’s so much strange in real life that it often seems like a dream.”

4. “I like the challenge of doing things you know that you maybe shouldn’t do.”

5. “A lot of things you see as a child remain with you. You spend a lot of your life trying to recapture the experience.”

6. “Movies are like an expensive form of therapy for me.”

7. “If you’ve ever had that feeling of loneliness, of being an outsider, it never quite leaves you. You can be happy or successful or whatever, but that thing still stays within you.”

8. “I never sort of really regret anything because you make your choices, and I like to stand by them.”

9. “To be honest, whatever troubles I’ve had, I’ve also gotten the opportunities to do things.”

10. “Maybe it’s just in America, but it seems that if you’re passionate about something, it freaks people out. You’re considered bizarre or eccentric. To me, it just means you know who you are.”

Wise Tim Burton Quotes That’ll Push Your Creativity

11. “The good thing about animation is that you can affect it. If something is not working, then you just fix it.”

12. “It’s good as an artist to always remember to see things in a new, weird way.”

13. “Anybody with artistic ambitions is always trying to reconnect with the way they saw things as a child.”

14. “There’s something about seeing this little inanimate object coming to life that’s just very exciting.”

15. “Don’t worry about how you ‘should’ draw it. Just draw it the way you see it.”

16. “When it comes to art and science, people don’t like a lot of either. Instead of being open to it, they’re closed off about it.”

17. “Things that I grew up with stay with me. You start a certain way, and then you spend your whole life trying to find a certain simplicity that you had. It’s less about staying in childhood than keeping a certain spirit of seeing things in a different way.” 

18. “I find that the most special thing to me is if you’ve connected to people in some way. If someone comes up to you on the street and says something to you, and you know it’s meant something to them, and it’s connected to some project. That, I find, is amazing.”

Tim Burton Quotes for Words to Ponder On

19. “For me, fantasy has always been a means of exploring reality: it explores the fact that your internal life, your dreams, and the weird images and the things that come to you are things that are actually important tools for dealing with real issues.”

20. “I’ve always been more comfortable making my decisions from the subconscious level—or more emotionally—because I find it is more truthful to me. Intellectually, I don’t think like that because I get uncomfortable.”

21. “When you don’t have many friends, and you don’t have a social life, you’re kind of left looking at things, not doing things. There’s a weird freedom in not having people treat you like you’re part of society or where you have to fulfill social relationships.”

22. “It’s hard to find logic in things sometimes. That’s why I can’t analyze things too much, because it often doesn’t make much sense.”

More Tim Burton Quotes to Understand His Personality

23. “I’ve always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people, but they’d still say I’m a dark personality.”

24. “When I was growing up, Dr. Seuss was really my favorite. There was something about the lyrical nature and the simplicity of his work that really hit me.”

25. “I’m a happy-go-lucky manic-depressive. It does get very deep and dark for me, and it gets scary at times when I feel I can’t pull out of it. But I don’t consider myself negative-negative. I’m positive-negative.”

Have You Ever Thought About the Person Behind Your Favorite Movies?

Tim Burton has lots of successful movies under his belt. They have all sorts of storylines and characters.

Still, even if they are all different from each other, each movie imparts some great lessons on following our dreams and being unapologetically ourselves. We can shy away from our true selves, but remember that doing so will never contribute to your happiness.

In a way, Tim Burton’s movies are a representation of his life’s philosophy and creativity. He uses these as a platform to reach out to people and help them accept themselves for who they are and follow their dreams.

No matter how unintentional, society imposes its constructs, rules, and expectations on us. However, are we supposed to follow them—especially if we don’t find fulfillment in them?

For Tim Burton, the answer is simple. We should create and follow our own path in life!

No matter how eccentric or weird you think your dream is, go for it. As we’ve learned from Tim Burton, don’t let yourself be limited because of what others think; be brave and explore the unknown!

Read Next:

Karen Danao

Hi, I’m Karen, a content curator and writer for Quote Ambition; I’m also a marketing and advertising professional. Beyond the keyboard and the screen, I’m someone who’s out to enjoy every bit that life has to offer!

Poetry, philosophy, history, and movies are all topics I love writing about! However, my true passion is in traveling, photography, and finding common ground to which everyone from different cultures can relate.

With the many places I’ve been to, I found that love, inspiration, and happiness are some things that bring people together. No matter how different we are on the outside, I’m a true believer that our emotions don’t lie; if you dig deep into our psyche, we’re all the same inside.

This belief was further amplified when I joined Quote Ambition. Through the quotes I’ve read, collected, organized, and written about, I found that humans are resilient, creative, and compassionate.

We take from each others’ hearts and courage, and it’s through our individual experiences that we learn how to rise above our challenges and pain. In so many ways, Quote Ambition is a platform that allows people from all over the world to gain the inspiration they need anytime, anywhere!

You can find me on MuckRack and LinkedIn.