Luis Buñuel > Quotes

“You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all... Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing.”
― Luis Bunuel

“Thank God I'm an atheist!”
― Luis Bunuel

“Sometimes, watching a movie is a bit like being raped.”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh

“Age is something that doesn't matter unless you're a cheese”
― Luis Buñuel

“I can't help feeling that there is no beauty without hope, struggle, and conquest.”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh

“God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed.”
― Luis Bunuel

“All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence.”
― Luis Buñuel

“Salvador Dalí seduced many ladies, particularly American ladies, but these seductions usually consisted of stripping them naked in his apartment, frying a couple of eggs, putting them on the woman's shoulders and, without a word, showing them the door.”
― Luis Buñuel

“If you were to ask me if I'd ever had the bad luck to miss my daily cocktail, I'd have to say that I doubt it; where certain things are concerned, I plan ahead.”
― Luis Bunuel

“Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.”
― Luis Buñuel

“Even today, I've no idea what the truth is, or what I did with it.”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh

“Today`s culture is unfortunately inseparable from economic and military power. A ruling nation can impose its culture and give a worldwide fame to a second-rate writer like (Ernest Hemingway). (John Steinbeck) is important due to American guns. Had (John Dos Passos) and (William Faulkner) been born in Paraguay or in Turkey, who`d read them?”
― Luis Buñuel

“The bar . . . is an exercise in solitude. Above all else, it must be quiet, dark, very comfortable - and, contrary to modern mores, no music of any kind, no matter how faint. In sum, there should be no more than a dozen tables, and a client that doesn't like to talk.”
― Luis Buñuel

“Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese. ”
― Luis Bunuel

“I also remember being struck by de Sade's will, in which he asked that his ashes be scattered to the four corners of the earth in the hope that humankind would forget both his writings and his name. I'd like to be able to make that demand; commemorative ceremonies are not only false but dangerous, as are all statues of famous men. Long live forgetfulness, I've always said—the only dignity I see is in oblivion.”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh

“A life without memory is no life at all”
― Luis Bunuel

“What am I to God? Nothing, a murky shadow. My passage on this earth is too rapid to leave any traces; it counts for nothing in space or in time. God really doesn't pay any attention to us, so even if he exists, it's as if he didn't. My form of atheism, however, leads inevitably to an acceptance of the inexplicable. Mystery is inseparable from chance, and our whole universe is a mystery. Since I reject the idea of a divine watchmaker (a notion even more mysterious than the mystery it supposedly explains), then I must consent to live in a kind of shadowy confusion. And insofar as no explication, even the simplest, works for everyone, I've chosen my mystery. At least it keeps my moral freedom intact.”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh

“As inexplicable as the accidents that set it off, our imagination is a crucial privilege. I've tried my whole life simply to accept the images that present themselves to me without trying to analyze them. I remember when we were shooting That Obscure Object of Desire in Seville and I suddenly found myself telling Fernando Rey, at the end of a scene, to pick up a big sack filled with tools lying on a bench, sling it over his shoulder, and walk away. The action was completely irrational, yet it seemed absolutely right to me. Still, I was worried about it, so I shot two versions of the scene: one with the sack, one without. But during the rushes the following day, the whole crew agreed that the scene was much better with the sack. Why? I can't explain it, and I don't enjoy rummaging around in the cliches of psychoanalysis.”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh

“Bound, elbow to elbow, darkness and night entered the dwelling.”
― Luis Buñuel

“The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.
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― Luis Buñuel

“You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all.”
― Luis Buñuel

“One of the greatest tragedies in my life is my deafness, for it's been over twenty years now since I've been able to hear notes. When I listen to music it's as if the letters in a text were changing places with one another, rendering the words unintelligible and muddying the lines. I'd consider my old age redeemed if my hearing were to come back, for music would be the gentlest opiate, calming my fears as I move toward death. In any case, I suppose the only chance I have for that kind of miracle involves nothing short of a visit to Lourdes.”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh

“De todas as pessoas que conheci, Federico vem em primeiro lugar. Não falo nem de seu teatro nem de sua poesia, falo dele. A obra-prima era ele. Parece inclusive difícil imaginar alguém comparável. Quer ao piano imitando Chopin, quer improvisando uma pantomima, um esquete teatral, era irresistível. Podia ler qualquer coisa, a beleza sempre jorrava de seus lábios. Ele tinha a paixão, a alegria, a juventude. Era uma labareda.
Quando o conheci, na Residência dos Estudantes, eu era um atleta provinciano bem tacanho. Pela força da nossa amizade, ele me transformou, me fez conhecer outro mundo. Devo a ele mais do que consigo dizer.
Seus restos mortais nunca foram encontrados. Lendas circularam sobre sua morte, e Dalí – de um jeito bem ignóbil – chegou a falar em crime homossexual, o que é totalmente absurdo. Na realidade, Federico morreu porque era poeta. Nessa época, do outro lado, ouvia-se gritar: “Morte à inteligência!”
― Luis Buñuel, Mi último suspiro

“I would give my life for a man who is looking for the truth. But I would gladly kill a man who thinks that he has found the truth.”
― Luis Buñuel

“Don't ask me my opinions on art, because I don't have any. Aesthetic concerns have played a relatively minor role in my life, and I have to smile when a critic talks, for example, of my "palette". I find it impossible to spend hours in galleries analyzing and gesticulating.”
― Luis Buñuel

“Mystery is the essential element of every work of art.”
― Luis Buñuel

“لو قالوا لي, بقي لك من الحياة عشرون يومًا, ماذا تفضل ان تفعل في الساعات الأربع والعشرين من كل يوم من هذه الأيام التي سوف تعيشها؟ لأجبت: اعطوني ساعتين من الحياة الفاعلة, وعشرين ساعة من الأحلام, شرط ان اتذكرها فيما بعد, لأن الحلم موجود لمجرد الذكرى التي نتعلل بها.”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh

“Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese”
― Luis Buñuel

“Imposible beber sin fumar”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh

“Si me dijeran: te quedan veinte años de vida, ¿qué te gustaría hacer durante las veinticuatro horas de cada uno de los días que vas a vivir?, yo respondería: dadme dos horas de vida activa y veinte horas de sueños, con la condición de que luego pueda recordarlos; porque el sueño sólo existe por el recuerdo que lo acaricia.”
― Luis Buñuel, My Last Sigh