Peter Greenaway quotes - page 6

Look, it was an accident. Five thousand accidents happen every day -- bizarre, tragic, farcical... they're Acts of God fit only to amaze the survivors and irritate the Insurance Company... (Peter Greenaway)
Counting makes even hideous events bearable as simply more of the same -- the counting of wedding-rings, spectacles, teeth and bodies disassociates them from their context -- to make the ultimate obscene blasphemy of bureaucratic insensitivity. Engage the mind with numbing recitation to make it empty of reaction. View quote
Peter Greenaway
Twenty-four pulleys, one hundred counterweights / two lenses, dark shadows... View quote
Peter Greenaway
This book is past the first flush of youth. It is a book that is in puberty. It is hesitating, and from the vantage point of the mature reader, it is both a sad and amusing reminder of the part which is not always attractive enough to be revisited. View quote
Peter Greenaway
Dawns and sunsets. The Magic Hour -- when the sun and the moon can be in the sky at the same time -- a magic and disturbing occurrence for a child. And for an adult. View quote
Peter Greenaway
And you would never know if she had feet. View quote
Peter Greenaway
May I keep this book forever. May this book and this body outlast my love. May this book and this body love me as I love its length, its breadth, its thickness, its text, its skin, its letters, its punctuation, its quiet and its noisy pages. View quote
Peter Greenaway
I like sleeping. (after a pause) You were conceived in this bed. View quote
Peter Greenaway
I invariably, after great familiarity with a film, concoct a personal way of reading it that relies entirely on information which a public audience would, I feel, have scant interest. I might travel from a casual unrehearsed glance of a minor character to a detail of folded cloth, from a rhyme in the dialogue to an over-excited high note in the music, from a misplaced shadow to a patch of rogue colour, from a shine on a furniture leg to a curious accidental photographic haze around a street lamp, from the examination of a cloud that looks like a snail to the discomfort of an actress who I know is stifling a sneeze. View quote
Peter Greenaway
Alas, despite wing implants, feathers and wax, and carnal associations with swans, we will never grow wings. Alas, any true flight we make will always be externally assisted. Alas, the best we can do is fall and believe ourselves flying. View quote
Peter Greenaway
Blood: A red substance believed to be capable of supporting life but which in a theatrical drama invariably indicates death. (Peter Greenaway)
Cinema: An illusion that can only satisfactorily happen in the dark. View quote
Peter Greenaway
Atlas, the man who carries the world, becomes the book of the maps of the world. An example of man, or God, into book. Few have that honour. View quote
Peter Greenaway
I want to describe the Body as a Book, a Book as a Body, and this Body and this Book will be the first Volume of Thirteen Volumes. View quote
Peter Greenaway
What days are those Albert? And what's it like? View quote
Peter Greenaway
Are animals like car-crashes -- Acts of God or mere Accidents -- bizarre, tragic, farcical, plotted nowadays into a scenario by an ingenious storyteller, Mr C Darwin? View quote
Peter Greenaway
Nagiko, I am waiting for you. Meet me at the library. Any library. Every library. Yours, Jerome. View quote
Peter Greenaway
Taupe? What sort of colour is "taupe"? It sounds like a Malaysian ground sloth encountered once every fifty years by one of the Attenboroughs wearing long socks. View quote
Peter Greenaway
It is a most unexpected Earthquake in Geneva. View quote
Peter Greenaway
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. View quote
Peter Greenaway
The film has written and spoken dialogue in twenty-five languages-English, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Latin, Hebrew, necrotic Egyptian ... and it has written calligraphic text on paper, wood, and flesh, on flat and curved surfaces, vertically and horizontally, on both living and dead flesh, in neon, on screens, in projection, as sub-title, inter-title, and sur-title, as High Art and low art, as advertisement and banker's check and registration plate, on photograph, on blackboard, as letter correspondence, as photocopy facsimile, and spoken, chanted, and sung, with and without music ... a mocking challenge. You want text? Cinema wants text? Cinema pretends to eschew text? Then we can give you text to mock that smug suggestion that cinema thinks it is pictures. (Peter Greenaway)
A final splash plops ... all water-movement ceases and the screen is a black velvet void. View quote
Peter Greenaway
Esmerelda, the grieving widow, continues to burn and scream. In our minds we rush to save her from the consuming flames. But cannot. View quote
Peter Greenaway
Have you read all of them? View quote
Peter Greenaway
No Albert -- it's not God -- it's Michael. My lover. You vowed you would kill him -- and you did. And you vowed you would eat him. Now eat him. View quote
Peter Greenaway