Quotes from Andrei Tarkovsky

I must change my life. Stop and start afresh.

For some reason (working on Hoffmann) I remembered Armenia. A thunderstorm, and a shepherd drives his flock of sheep into the half-ruined church. 'Marmarashen'. A film

At 11:30 at night we went out into the meadow to watch the moon through the mist. It was unbelievably beautiful.

Gianni (Antonioni's friend) was telling us horrifying things today about England, which he found hardly recognizable after an interval of two years. Spiritual degeneration. Money and make-believe replacing the life of the spirit.

Despite everything, a balanced, independent, lonely way of life can give the peace that is vital. I must look for peace. I must start to do meditation seriously—there I go, thinking again in Italian terms —and Buddhism.

Heard the St. Matthew Passion at the Cathedral. Marvellous.

Today is my second-last lecture of the course. I don't think much of these students, I must say. They're a dim lot.

Hay que dejar totalmente claro que las normas ordinarias del cine comercial y las producciones televisivas al uso corrompen al público de forma imperdonable, porque le roban cualquier posibilidad de contacto con el arte verdadero

Tonino and I went to look at a ruined church with a tree growing inside it. Beautiful. There is a peasant's house beside it. On the way back Tonino showed me a villa, on the outskirts of Rome, which has been abandoned because of ghosts. It looks amazing

How strangely people live. They seem to be in command of the situation and they do not understand that they have been given the chance of living and actually using the opportunity to be free. Everything in this life is terrible, apart from the freedom of will that we possess.

Whether one wishes to fly before it has become possible, or cast a bell without having learned how to do it, or paint an icon - all these acts demand that, for the price of his creation, man should die, dissolve himself in his work, give himself entirely. That is the meaning of the prologue - the man flew, and for that he sacrificed his life.

What passes for art today is for the most part a demonstration of itself, for it is a fallacy to suppose that method can become the meaning and aim of art. Nonetheless, most modern artists spend their time self-indulgently demonstrating method.

In cinema the director has to breathe life into the actor, not make of him a mouthpiece for his own ideas.

True artistic inspiration is always a torment for the artist, almost to the point of endangering his life. Its realisation is tantamount to a physical feat.

The artist has no right to an idea to which he is not socially committed, or the realisation of which could involve a dichotomy between his professional activity and the rest of his life.

I want to underline my own belief that art must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition to it—otherwise life would become impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence.

The death of childhood is the beginning of poetry.

Además, ejercía una profesión noble. Es verdad, cobra dinero por ello. Me gustaría saber si un hombre puede ser buen médico y buscar al mismo tiempo su propio provecho. Quizá sea posible.

No se obran milagros en el mundo, lo único que no comprendo es la muerte, ese engullimiento en un abismo sombrío y denso donde se pierden los sentimientos y la conciencia. ¿Acaso es un milagro? No, es poco probable: es metafísica.

On 24 April 1970 we bought a house in Myasnoye. The one we wanted. Now I don't care what happens. If they don't give me any work I'll sit in the country and breed piglets and geese, and tend my vegetable patch, and to hell with the lot of them

If the decline of art is obvious which it is and if art is the soul of the nation, then our nation, our country, is suffering from a grave psychic disease.

Now only a genius can save humanity—not a prophet, no!—a genius who will formulate a new moral ideal. But where is he, this Messiah ? There is nothing left for us but to learn to die with dignity. Cynicism has never saved anyone yet; it's the lot of the faint-hearted.

Spirit and flesh, feeling and reason can never again be made one. It's too late. For the moment we are crippled by the appalling disease of spiritual deficiency; and the disease is fatal. Mankind has done everything possible to annihilate itself, starting with its own moral annihilation—physical death is merely the result.

Despite the fact that God lives in every soul, that every soul has the capacity to accumulate what is eternal and good, as a mass people can do nothing but destroy. For they have come together not in the name of an ideal, but simply for the sake of a material notion.