They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never dissapointed.
Art exists because reality is neither real nor significant.
Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us.
E. Klimov’s ‘Come and See,’ about partisans fighting the Germans in Byelorussia, is the greatest anti-war film ever made.
Perhaps the future belongs to magic, and it’s we women who control magic.
After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.
I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic.
The ultimate concept car will move so fast, even at rest, as to be invisible.
Surrender to a logic more powerful than reason.
The entertainment medium of film is particularly tuned to the present imaginations of people at large. A lot of fiction is intensely nostalgic.
If you’re against globalisation, it doesn’t achieve much by sort of bombing the head offices of Shell or Nestle. You unsettle people much more by blowing up an Oxfam shop because people can’t understand the motive.
Nagasaki destroyed by the magic of science is the nearest man has yet approached to the realization of dreams that even during the safe immobility of sleep are accustomed to develop into nightmares of anxiety.
Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future.
Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it.
A ton of Proust isn’t worth an ounce of Ray Bradbury.
I thought it was a wonderfully conceptual act actually, to fire a replica pistol at a figurehead – the guy could have been working for Andy Warhol!
The suburbs dream of violence.
All through my career I’ve written 1,000 words a day – even if I’ve got a hangover. You’ve got to discipline yourself if you’re professional. There’s no other way.
Most writers flinch at the thought of being completely honest about themselves. So absolute honesty is what marks the true modern.
A general rule: if enough people predict something, it won’t happen.