Quotes from Roberto Benigni

'The Tiger And The Snow' is a beautiful movie. I am in love with this idea.

My previous movie before 'Life Is Beautiful' was the same; they didn't release it so much in United States.

I grew up in Tuscany in a very poor family. 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.

I would like to be Jupiter, and lie down in the firmament and make love to everybody.

My mother brought me magicians and witches, because I was very ugly, really revolting. So she thought somebody had put a spell on me - this is the truth - so she made me drink some horrible terrifying potions, for year.

I think that sometimes only comedians can reach the peaks of tragedy.

I'm a storyteller: the crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry; it doesn't matter if that is comedy or tragedy. They're the same if you reach the beauty.

The exquisite truth is to believe in something that maybe you know is a fiction, but you believe in it willingly.

Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn't allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown - very much.

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

In Italy, the country where fascism was born, we have a particular relation with the Holocaust, but as a turning point in history it belongs to everybody in the world. It is a part of humanity.

'The Divine Comedy' is very sophisticated but also very popular.

Stanley Kubrick is one of the geniuses of this century.

I am like a cartoon strip; I am like Donald Duck; everybody knows me in Italy.

Dante Alighieri is a universal poet, and great creators, they are writing for everybody always. Every single verse is very moving, and the beauty - if we don't understand, we just stay listening to the sound and it's like hearing music.

Maybe sometimes I have been wrong with some movies. Anyway, I try to do my best.

I would like to thank my parents in Vergaio, a little village in Italy. They gave me the biggest gift: poverty.