Quotes from Roberto Benigni

Fellini belongs to nature.

It's me, it's my habit to perform live onstage every four, five years. In Italy, it's my habit.

When I was a little boy, I was reading Dante and I was saying to myself 'Bravo, Dante, Bravo.' It's so beautiful, the music, the sound, the meaning. I felt like calling him by phone, like a friend.

My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity.

Sometimes poetry, it is incomprehensible. But we need incomprehensible stuff! It is very healthy to talk about incomprehensible things! It is very healthy! We need it!

It's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.

The first movie I saw - and I don't know if it influenced me - was Ben Hur. We watched it outside in a corn field, and it ran backwards, so the first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur backwards.

I do not think the American peoples are idiots. They are a very playful and sensitive people! I know them!

When we talk to somebody and we want to be nice or polite or show our more beautiful side, we try to use the best words that we know. This is what poets are doing. They are cleaning the words, they are inventing the sentiments, they are giving us a way to communicate.

You're serving. You're not a servant. Serving is a supreme art. God is the first servant. God serves men but he's not a servant to men. - Eliseo Orefice

The most important thing is to continue to be yourself. The day after the Oscars, you have to get on with your life. To be honest and true to yourself.

To be in front of an audience and pretending, and to lie, this is the principle of acting.

My duty is to try to reach beauty. Cinema is emotion. When you laugh you cry.

I remember in the circus learning that the clown was the prince, the high prince. I always thought that the high prince was the lion or the magician, but the clown is the most important.

My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity.

To laugh or cry is the most beautiful thing in the world

Buon giorno, Principessa!" #newfavoritemovie

Quando l'uomo con la pistola incontra l'uomo con la biro, l'uomo con la pistola è morto.

La vita è bella

Quando si ride ci si lascia andare, si è nudi, ci si scopre. Quando uno ride, vedi un po' la sua anima. E poi quando si ride ci si muove, ci si scuote, come un albero, e si lascia per terra le cose che gli altri possono vedere e magari cogliere. Gli avari e coloro che non hanno niente da offrire, infatti, non ridono.

Fellini and Bunuel changed my life for me, they are my favourites. If it is true that movies are dreams, both of them, Fellini and Bunuel were shooting in a dream way.

When I first saw a Fellini movie, I came out of the movie theatre and decided to become a lawyer! I thought to myself, it's impossible to make something so beautiful!

I could have made a small film and kept all the money from 'Life is Beautiful'. Instead, I spent more money than I had on 'Pinocchio', a very risky film.

My mother and my father went to the cinema for the first time when I made my first movie in 1978.