“Dream is destiny.”
Opening scene
2001 · Richard Linklater
Waking Life
A man wanders through a dream he cannot wake from, collecting conversations about life along the way. Richard Linklater's Waking Life is a painted stream of thought. These quotes are its brightest moments, reimagined as quiet loops.
“The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams.”
Guy Forsyth
“The worst mistake that you can make is to think you're alive when really you're asleep in life's waiting room.”
Guy Forsyth
“There's only one instant, and it's right now. And it's eternity.”
The pinball player
“Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear, or laziness?”
Louis Mackey
“On really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion.”
Timothy "Speed" Levitch
“The ongoing WOW is happening right now.”
Timothy "Speed" Levitch
“The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving.”
The boat car guy
“It's like you come onto this planet with a crayon box. But it's all in what you do with the crayons.”
The boat car guy
“Things have been tough lately for dreamers. They say dreaming's dead. I'm trying to change all that: by dreaming, every day.”
The man on the train
“Whatever you do, don't be bored. This is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive.”
The man on the train
“A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage from which to view this experience.”
The man on TV
Short quotations from Waking Life (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2012) under quotation right. All rights in the films remain with their respective owners. Some German and Spanish versions are our own translation. The visuals are original, freely interpreted scenes and contain no film footage.