Peter Greenaway Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

It seems to me that the comprehension and enjoyment of the reader, as opposed to the viewer, is best served in printing this version rather than a slavish definitive transcription. Besides, what film is truly definitive? By the time you see the film it may very well be sub-titled, re-edited, shortened, even censored, and every film is viewed at the discretion of the projectionist, the cinema manager, the architect of the cinema, the comfort of your seat and the attention of your neighbour.

Peter Greenaway
It serves the purpose of not serving a purpose, surely quite a valid one.

Peter Greenaway
To be an atheist you have to have ten thousand times more imagination than if you are a religious fundamentalist. You must take the responsibility to acquire information, digest and use it to understand what you can.

Peter Greenaway
Americans don't understand what metaphor in cinema is about. They're extremely good at making straightforward, linear narrative movies, which entertain superbly. But they very rarely do anything else.

Peter Greenaway
There are only two subjects that matters, one is sex and the other is death, what else we could talk about it. And most the cinema talks all the time about sex and death. And my cinema deals with sex and death so... what's the problem?

Peter Greenaway
There are basically only two subject matters in all Western culture: sex and death. We do have some ability to manipulate sex nowadays. We have no ability, and never will have, to manipulate death.

Peter Greenaway
I've always been fascinated by maps and cartography. A map tells you where you've been, where you are, and where you're going — in a sense it's three tenses in one.

Peter Greenaway
We all live to a formula. Maybe the secret lies in keeping that formula secret.

Peter Greenaway
We don't need books to make films. It's the last thing we want – it turns cinema into the bastard art of illustration.

Peter Greenaway
I sit here for hours. It's like sitting amongst lighthouses, each lighthouse giving you a bearing on lost spaces of time...

Peter Greenaway