Alejandro Quotes

Cinema is universal, beyond flags and borders and passports. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Five cats and a woman. That is all I need in life. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Do you know the phrase, 'The word 'water' will not wet you?' It's one thing to write down an idea and another thing entirely to execute it. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Look, I'm no purist - there are good superhero films, and there are bad ones. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I really did Regression to work with Alejandro [Amenabar]. I found him very interesting. His movie, The Others, is one of the better scary movies of the last period of time. ~ Ethan Hawke

We all exist in our own personal reality of craziness. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Alejandro, who thought he was a wit. And he was, if you put a "nit" in front of it, ~ Karen Chance

To have hands, to have fingers, is weird. Real life is weird, to have fingers? ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Cannes or any other major festival is basically an animal in its own nature, creating very specific perceptions of films in a moment. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

When I was a young person I went to the university and I learned a rational language, to think with the left side of the brain. But in the right side of the brain you have intuition and imagination. Words are not the truth; they indicate the way to go, but you need to go alone, in silence. Symbols have a language that kills the words. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Another reptilian brain disguised as a modest mouse in the rat race. ~ Alejandro Saint-Barthélemy

I always think that art is a form of sacrifice. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

The visual architecture of 'Biutiful' is the most sophisticated of all the films I have directed. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The creative process is mysterious; a conversation, a ride in the car, or a melody can trigger something. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Blessed is he who can call his family friends and his friends family. ~ David Alejandro Fearnhead

It's more enjoyable for me to know that life is finite. Knowing that, I would like to go to a party. When you get to the holidays, if you think that the holidays will be forever, you just take it for granted. But, if you know that you have just three days at the beach, you will be so happy to be there every day. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

You live in the image you have of the world. Every one of us lives in a different world, with different space and different time. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

I made commercials for corporations like Volkswagen and Coca-Cola, but I was always the one to write them, too, which was a very good exercise, because I learned to tell little stories. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I want to liberate my imagination and my mind with every kind of movie. That is what I wanted to do all my life. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

The thing is, I don't know if these stories he was telling were mine, or his, or someone else's. You spend your life among words, listening, making sense out of what you say and out of what you imagine other people are saying to you, believing that something in particular happened like this or that, as a result of this or that, with these or those consequences. But it is never so simple, is it? I suppose that if we read about ourselves in a book, we wouldn't recognize ourselves, we wouldn't realize that those people doing certain things and behaving in a particular manner are us. I always believed that I knew Alejandro, that I knew him intimately, I mean, the way you might know a doll you've once taken to pieces. But it wasn't true. ~ Alberto Manguel

If the picture is not an artistic picture, it's show, like television. Television series are very funny, but it's a collective production. An industrial art. A car is not made by a person, it's made by a group of creators, only to go to the market to buy your cigarettes. That is a car - they are not a big art, they are a little art. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

I don't think of an actor. I think in the character, and then I search for the actor. Usually I'm thinking without names, because they will change my idea. No big egos. If I want egos - just mine. That is enough. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Beauty fades so you'd better work at having something more to offer. ~ David Alejandro Fearnhead

For the actors, the talent is to serve the demands that I ask of them, to do it with naturality and truth, and to be honest when we were terrified. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

When I'm not creating something, I get bored; I despair. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

For me, the most important thing that I have to accomplish is to be a good father. That's the most difficult challenge of my life. That's the most important thing for me, more than films. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The actors make the film. They're the ones that take this theoretical movie that's in your head and make it real. The success of a film is entirely on their shoulders. I admire them, because acting is such a difficult thing to do, and I personally can't understand it. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

You hear about bombings in other countries, or numbers like "10,000 people died" - you hear that number and you think, "Well, I saw that yesterday in a film, and that didn't look so bad." Younger viewers, in particular, lose perspective on reality. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The world is how we see the world. Some people see the world good, the other people see the world bad. Every person has an idea of the world with a subjective [viewpoint]. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

If art is not a medicine for the society, it is a poison. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

That incredible bubble and high expectations built at festivals can work against a film. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

All people know that they will die, but they don't actually believe it. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

We need to see ourselves projected in other members of our species to, in turn, understand ourselves. Cinema, is that mirror. It is a bridge between the others and us. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

My second wife, the mother of one of my sons, died of murder. I was not with her, but I could have saved her. I think. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Miracles are like stones: they are everywhere, offering up their beauty, but hardly anyone concedes value to them. We live in a reality where prodigies abound but are seen only by those who have developed their perception of them. Without this perception everything is banal, marvelous events are seen as chance, and one progresses through life without possessing the key that is gratitude. When something extraordinary happens it is seen as a natural phenomenon that we can exploit like parasites, without giving anything in return. But miracles require an exchange; I must make that which is given to me bear fruit for others. If one is not united with oneself, the wonder cannot be captured. Miracles are never performed or provoked: they are discovered. If someone who believes himself to be blind takes off his dark glasses, he will see the light. That darkness is the prison of the rational. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

To read is to cover one's face. And to write is to show it. ~ Alejandro Zambra

The consultant buys a bottle of fake blood at a theater supply store and once every lunar month, for four days, imitates having a period by putting some of this blood into the vagina and preventing it from gushing out by using a tampon. After repeating this for four months, the consultant's period will return to normal. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

I am not a commercial industry creator. I don't believe in making art to make money. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

And just so you know for the future, I like my double-chocolate chip cookies warm and soft in the middle ... and without magnets glued to them."
"Me, too. When you decide to bake me some, let me know. ~ Simone Elkeles

'21 Grams' is only one story told by three different points of view, but they are really physically connected - literally, with the heart. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

When you have critics filing on Twitter, it leaves no time for thought and perspective. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

If you want to draw some advantage from your history, you must accept not only this miracle but also many others. In memory, everything can become miraculous. All you have to do is wish it, and freezing winter turns into spring, miserable rooms fill up with golden tapestries, murderers turn good, and children who cry out of loneliness receive caring teachers who are really the children themselves moved back from adulthood to their early years. Yes, my daughter, the past is not fixed and unalterable. With faith and will we can change it, not erasing its darkness but adding lights to it to make it more and more beautiful, the way a diamond is cut. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

One of the reasons why I agreed to do commercials is that they gave me complete freedom. I just had to have the car in it and write a story around it. I wanted to do something serious set in a Latin American country, but again, it was an exercise in style for me. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

When you have a fresh point of view that comes from the right side of the heart, it's just so valuable. You can take it or not take it, but just that perspective can give you a lot of strength or make you reflect on a lot of things. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

if you want to be understood ...Listen. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

What is an artistic picture? An artistic picture is very simple. The creator is not the producer. The creator is not the star. The creator is the director, the person who realizes the picture, like a poet, like an artist. The creator of the picture is free to do whatever he wants, how he wants to do it. That is an artistic picture. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Although really society should not change, it should mutate. And, little by little, it is mutating ...
... Society is like the body of a chicken: the chicken's foot is hard and insensitive while the eye is very alive. And there are beings who embody the cells of the eyes and others who embody the cells of the feet, of the wings, or of the anus. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

I think bad movies are made around the world, not just in Hollywood. There are as many bad art films in the whole world as there are bad commercial films. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Brittany Ellis," Mrs. Peterson says, pointing to the table behind Colin. I unenthusiastically sit on the stool at my assigned place.
"Alejandro Fuentes," Mrs. Peterson says, pointing to the stool next to me.
Oh my God. Alex . . . my chemistry partner? For my entire senior year! No way, no how, SO not okay. I give Colin a "help me" look as I try to avoid a panic attack. I definitely should have stayed at home. In bed. Under the covers. Forget not being intimidated.
"Call me Alex."
Mrs. Peterson looks up from her class list and regards Alex above the glasses on her nose. ' Alex Fuentes," she says, before changing his name on her list. "Mr. Fuentes, take off that bandanna. I have a zero tolerance policy in my class. No gang-related accessories are allowed to enter this room. Unfortunately, Alex, your reputation precedes you. Dr. Aguirre backs my zero tolerance policy one hundred percent ... do I make myself clear?"
Alex stares her down before sliding the bandanna off his head, exposing raven hair that matches his eyes.
"It's to cover up the lice," Colin mutters to Darlene, but I hear him and Alex does, too.
"Vete a la verga," Alex says to Colin, his hard eyes blazing. "Collate el hocico."
"Whatever, dude," Colin says, then turns around. "He can't even speak English."
"That's enough, Colin. Alex, sit down." Mrs. Peterson eyes the rest of the class. "That goes for the rest of you, as well. I can't control what you do outside of ~ Simone Elkeles

The three golden things to do in life is very simple. Live, Life, Learn. Find the fourth L and your life is perfect. ~ Alejandro Delgado

Who cares about my opinions? ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I had a big problem working with stars, because they are too expensive and have too many demands. Their names help you raise the money to make the movie, but then they demand close-ups. They change things. You end up doing things at their service instead of servicing the film. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

You are engaging in madness. I feel obliged to accompany you. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Back then death was invisible for children like me, who went outside, running fearlessly along those fantastical streets, safe from history. The night of the earthquake was the first time I realized that everything could come tumbling down. Now I think it's a good thing to know. It's necessary to remember it every second. ~ Alejandro Zambra

I think there's nothing wrong with being fixated on superheroes when you are 7 years old, but I think there's a disease in not growing up. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

One day, someone showed me a glass of water that was half full. And he said, "Is it half full or half empty?" So I drank the water. No more problem. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

It's famous that comedians have a very dark personal state of mind. I think, in my case, it's the same. The only way to get deep is to have a balance, or a counterbalance. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

My movies, in general, I have the impression that when they finish of course they're never originally what you had in mind. ~ Alejandro Amenabar

'Santa Sangre' is the picture I love the best, myself, because 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain' I made with my head, and 'Santa Sangre' I made with my feelings, with my heart. It's an emotional picture. And it's more real for me, that picture. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

I have a notebook, and I know what decisions will be made in pre-production. Everything is pre-determined in the pre-production period. I visually design the whole thing, and I know when things will happen. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

All of us want something in life, all of us have flaws, and all of us have strengths. So, I always try to discover those things in a character and then try to expose it in one way or another. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Sometimes it depends on the actor or the actress. Sometimes they demand a lot of rehearsals. Sometimes they don't. Making movies is not like making a play, so I guess you can leave some of the work for improvisation when they do the work. ~ Alejandro Amenabar

When the bull's-eye becomes as big in your mind as an elephant, you are sure to hit it. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

You can better embrace life, you can enjoy it more, when you are conscious that it will end. You bite life. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I think the most experimental way to a film is to tell the story the traditional way, because everyone is doing the other thing. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The day you were born was the happiest day of my life, but I was so nervous that I don't know if happiness is really the best word to describe what I felt. I think it is my obligation to tell you, in spite of the absolute love I have always felt for you, in spite of how much you have brightened my life, and I assume your mother's as well - I haven't seen her in around ten years now, but I'm sure that for her as well you have been a constant source of happiness - in spite of all that, I have to tell you that during the eighteen years you've now been alive, I've never stopped wondering what my life would have been like if you had never been born.

It's an overwhelming thought, an exit that leads to the darkest of nights, to the most complete blackness, but also to shadow and sometimes, slowly, toward something like a clearing in the woods. These fantasies are normal, but it's not so common for parents to confess them. For example, over the years I have thought thousands of times that if you hadn't been born I would have needed less money, or could have disappeared for weeks on end without worrying about anyone. I could have prolonged my youth for several more years. I could have even killed myself. I mean, the first consequence of your birth was that from then on, I could never kill myself. ~ Alejandro Zambra

Perhaps the greatest illusion a writer ever creates is that his work is achieved without great effort or sacrifice. ~ David Alejandro Fearnhead

Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of the supreme nut jobs in movie history, and of course I mean that in the nicest way. ~ Steve Erickson

Of course, there's always one theater that shows some kind of European film. Now, fortunately, you have DVDs, so it's possible to get anything you want within a few hours. In those days, it was virtually impossible to get Italian films, or German films, or whatever. So I grew up with very standard, mainstream films. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I always think before I speak. I always think "I think I'll speak now. ~ John Alejandro King A.k.a. The Covert Comic

'Ikiru' is existential but with a lot of tenderness. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

My first cut is always pretty similar to the final cut. ~ Alejandro Amenabar

My wife is 37 years younger than me. I don't feel the difference. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

In families you can find the source of every human drama. It is interesting because the cell of a society, the cell of a country, the cell of humanity - everything lies in the family. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The mole is an animal that digs passages searching for the sun. Sometimes he reaches the surface. When he looks at the sun he goes blind. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Once you sell people fear, they'll buy just about anything. ~ David Alejandro Fearnhead

I'm scared of horses, and I don't know how to shoot them, but that's what excites me. After 40 years old, if you don't do some things that really terrify you, I don't think they're worth doing. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Antonio Sanchez is from Mexico City. I met him at a Pat Metheny concert. He did a solo, and I thought, 'This is an octopus man!' ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Hate is an occupation, love is a destiny. ~ David Alejandro Fearnhead

I see only one requirement you have to have to be a director or any kind of artist: rhythm. Rhythm, for me, is everything. Without rhythm, there's no music. Without rhythm, there's no cinema. Without rhythm, there's no architecture. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Alejandro Amenabar is a different kind of director than I lot of the directors I've asked for. He really asks you to enter his dream as opposed to, you know, a guy like Sidney Lumet or something is going to ask you to create a character almost like a documentary. He wants you to make the people really real and he's going to capture it like a documentarian. ~ Ethan Hawke

The irony of it, is how Freemasons have been trying to create and fulfill prophecy, and in their endeavor to hide behind secrecy they have been the catalyst for prophetic fulfillments. Moreover, I have taken the worst excrement ever defecated by mankind and have turned it into knowledge. Therefore, I have made the Thought a Thing and have aided the march of a TRUTH which I have bequeathed to mankind as a personal estate to hold in trust and I have dropped it into the world's wide treasury as an example of a human excellence of growth that shall make the spiritual glory of the human race greater because this endowment has been cultivated from Truth as raw as a diamond in the rough. For what man develops and creates will always be artificial and glorified fabrication that when dismantled, is nothing more than just a lie regardless of how sophisticated the deception. A con artist will never be more than just a thief, and a cubic zirconia will never be more perfect than a diamond. Thus I have written in the same line as Moses and he who died upon the cross, and I have achieved an intellectual sympathy with the Deity himself and since[according to Albert Pike] the best gift we can bestow on humanity, is manhood, then I shall call it:
ANTI - CHRIST ENDOWMENTS
Because I'm the Little Horn with the biggest horn on the field. They were not kidding when they said I would be more stout than my fellows. ~ Alejandro C. Estrada

I always thought I didn't have real childhood memories. That my history fit into a few lines. One one page, maybe. In large print. I don't think that anymore. ~ Alejandro Zambra

I can't understand the conditions of a corporate product being designed and getting millions. I admire it, it's great, but I don't know how to do that. I have to have the wheel. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I believe in mysticism, with an interior goal, and you are your own temple and your own priest. I don't believe anymore in religions, because you see today there are religious wars, prejudice, false morals, and the woman is despised. Religion is too old now; it's from another century, it's not for today. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

When you put a great amount of energy and hope in a big project, you can be destroyed if you don't do it. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

I would love to stay alone when I'm creating. ~ Alejandro Amenabar

Your true homeland is the universe.
Your true goal is to be yourself
Your true love is the love of life.
Your true power is your powerto help.
Your true happiness is to enjoy what you do.
Your true work is to create beauty.
Your true magic is to develop your attention.
Your true social action is to liberate consciences.
Your true discipline is to tame your ego.
Your true truth "The others are also me ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Every person, every artist makes his life an artwork. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

You have kids studying master class visual arts who are pushed to make films that will be successful economically; that's what they focus on. So they work for corporate interest instead of artistic expression. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

When I think about growing up, I feel most affected by two travels that I made working in cargo boats when I was 16 and 18. One of them crossed through the Mississippi and Baton Rouge and Mobile, Alabama, and another went all the way to Europe. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Every work of art belongs to his time. I would not paint again the Mona Lisa in the third dimension. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

The expected vertical line of Ikiru's narrative breaks when Kurosawa does a flash-forward in the middle of the film. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

During a party, Luis Buñuel, seduced by Carrington's beauty and emboldened by the notion that she had transcended all bourgeois morality, proposed (with his characteristic bluntness) that she become his mistress. Without even waiting for her answer, he gave her the key to the secret studio that he used as a love nest and told her to meet him at three o'clock the next afternoon. Early the next morning, Leonora went to visit the place alone. She found it tasteless: It looked exactly like a motel room. Taking advantage of the fact that she was in her menstrual period, she covered her hands with blood and used them to make bloody handprints all over the walls in order to provide a bit of decoration for that anonymous, impersonal room. Buñuel never spoke to her again. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Maybe if literature was prohibited the same way as cocaine, people out of pure curiosity would try to get a couple of lines ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

It's hard for me to work for somebody else. I can work with someone, but not for someone. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

For me they are no different, reality and dreams. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

No more fairy tales. From now on, only fairy facts. ~ John Alejandro King A.k.a. The Covert Comic

When I was an adolescent, I abandoned my country at 23 years to come to Paris to know Andre Breton, the 'Pope of Surrealism.' And for three years, I was there working with him being a surrealist. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky