I am living permanently in my dream, from which I make brief forays into reality.
I know, of course, that by using film we can bring in other previously unknown worlds, realities beyond reality.
I’m planning, you see, to try to confine myself to the truth. That’s hard for an old, inveterate fantasy martyr and liar who has never hesitated to give truth the form he felt the occasion demanded.
There is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect.
This damned ranting about doom. Is that food for the minds of modern people? Do they really expect us to take them seriously?
Either I did away with that fear through writing, or in the course of writing, I discovered it was no longer so intrusive or threating. The bottom line is, it’s gone.
To feel. To trust the feeling. I long for that.
When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying. But now I think it a very, very wise arrangement. It’s like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss about.
A film causes me so many worries and such a lot of reactions that I have to love it in order to get over it and past it.
I have always had the ability to attach my demons to my chariot.
All of us collect fortunes when we are children. A fortune of colors, of lights, and darkness, of movement, of tensions. Some of us have the fantastic chance to go back to his fortune when grown up.
When you die, you are extinguished. From being you will be transformed to non-being. A god does not necessarily dwell among our capricious atoms.
Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being that a belch is more satisfying.
People ask what are my intentions with my films – my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer...
Artistic license sneered through the thin fabric.
To humiliate and be humiliated, I think, is a crucial element in our whole social structure. It’s not only the artist I’m sorry for. It’s just that I know exactly where he feels most humiliated.
I have a lot of tics and phobias. I hate to travel. I hate to go to festivals. I hate it when somebody gets close behind me. I’m scared of the darkness. I hate open doors.
I think I have made just one picture that I really like...
Occasionally I sense an insane wail deep down in the pit, the echo alone reaching me, striking without warning, a child weeping uninhibitedly, imprisoned forever.
Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure...
I think I’m Swedish because I like to live here on this island. You can’t imagine the loneliness and isolation in this country. In that way, I’m very Swedish – I don’t dislike to be alone.