It's A Mistake To Confuse Pity With

You're Free To Speculate As You Wish About The Philosophical And Allegorical Meaning Of The Film—and Such Speculation Is One Indication That It Has Succeeded In Gripping The Audience At A Deep Level—but I Don't Want To Spell Out A Verbal Road Map For 2001 That Every Viewer Will Feel Obligated To Pursue Or Else Fear He's Missed The Point.

The Reality Of The Final Moment, Just Before Shooting [the Scene], Is So Powerful That All Previous Analysis Must Yield Before The Impressions You Receive Under These Circumstances, And Unless You Use This Feedback To Your Positive Advantage, Unless You Adjust To It, Adapt To It And Accept The Sometimes Terrifying Weaknesses It Can Expose, You Can Never Realize The Most Out Of Your Film.

[making Movies] You're Not Trying To Capture Reality, You're Trying To Capture A Photograph Of Reality.

Gee, I Wish We Had One Of Them Doomsday Machines Things.

I’ve Never Been Certain Whether The Moral Of The Icarus Story Should Only Be, As Is Generally Accepted, ‘don’t Try To Fly Too High,’ Or Whether It Might Also Be Thought Of As ‘forget The Wax And Feathers, And Do A Better Job On The Wings.