Quotes from Jonas Mekas

Mano gyvenimas yra šakotas, chaotiškas, ir be plano. Visi planuotojai nuved? pasaul? labai blogais keliais.

Muzika visados mane kankina, kaip gamta - jie pl?šo mane, aš negaliu pernešti j? stiprumo.

You want me to be rational. The most rational thing is the machine. Go to the machines. All their separate parts work together. But I live with no purpose, irrationally.

Let us build our houses with our own hands. And grow the wheat, and bake the bread. Then we'll know what the earth is. Now, we turn the knob: the water runs. I have no idea from where or how. Electricity... We buy the bread: we don't know who bakes it, how, where. The same with our lives now. We live, but we don't know how, where, why. And it has no taste.

Ah, you realists! I am not ashamed of my romanticism. Ah, you, abstractionists: I will confess to you my passion for objects, earth, nature. Should I pretend I am a stone when emotions, memories surge and overflow me, and I am dreaming of home, and melting snow?

Aš neabejoju nei pradžia, nei pabaiga. Tiktai nežinau, kur esu.

Aš galvoju, kad visai nesvarbu, kokioj gamtoj, kokiam gamtovaizdy žmogus, tauta gyvena. Kas svarbu, yra tai, k? jis ? t? gamtovaizd? deda.

Menas žmones ?skiepina. Jis juos pakei?ia, meno skiepais, iš šunobelies ? obel?.

Jeigu neturi žem?s, tai tu esi niekur.

Ne viskas turi esm?. Yra aki? be dugno, yra širdži? išsekusi?, kaip sausmedis, ištroškusi?. Tikrov??- miražas dykumoj kartais tikresnis, negu mes patys.

All nature is full of hatred for humans. I don't think man has any friends among plants or animals. I suspect that even dogs and cats, those so-called best friends of man, are only pretending friendship to man in order to spy on his misdeeds, and they would betray him without blinking an eye the first chance they had. They know that Man is the worst of the beasts.

We have learned to eat like snakes. When there is something to eat - we eat enough to last for a week. When there is nothing - we don't eat. Now, when we get our food supply, we eat it all, right there, we leave nothing for tomorrow. Like the birds. And then we read our books. We go after spiritual food...

It's more difficult for a mother to forget one child than for living humanity to forget all the millions who died in this war.

What a hell am I doing here? Why do I need a degree? I haven't heard a single sentence during all these lectures that would inspire one single line of poetry.

We try to hide it every way we can, but it always comes out, the lyricism. A Lithuanian connot live without nature. You can't detach him from the wide, green fields, from the brooks, the snow, the cobwebs flying through the air in late September, or from his forests, fragrant with moss and beries.

daug sapn? jie ateina ir v?l pradingsta išblunka iš atminties

Reason? When you touch a ball charged with electricity, does the electricity have a reason to discharge itself? Or an apple, to grow, to ripen, to fall? Or to do good to a child? Or to be a mother? To love? To create? The best things have no need, no reason, they happen, the same as when you release an object and it falls.

I go for a long night walk, in order to get out of the factory day. I walk and i wander through the network of the streets, neon lights and night crowds. This woman on the corner, she was shouting at me: ''Ay, why are you so sad?'' Lady of the night, you haven't see me really sad. Right now i am in my happiest mood. I continue walking. How could she really understand the depths of my sadness.

Aš turiu laiko - visas laikas yra mano, aš metais ži?riu ? gelton? liepos žyd?jim?, neskub?damas ir nesir?pindamas.

Ir nieko n?ra pastovaus - kaip m?s? širdys - ir viskas, kas tariam stovi ant tvirto pagrindo, yra tiek tikra, kiek m?nulis šulin?. Ir viskas plaukia ir siubuoja visatoje, kaip japon? nameliai. Toks yra mano sielos pasaulis - ir jis n?ra j?s?.

Sak? - tavyje n?ra gyvyb?s ir jokio jud?sio. O mano siela ?m? šokti, mano širdis atgijo, ži?r?dama ? tavo veid?, gyvyb?s piln?, ir tavo lengvus judesius. Kadaise menininko rankos tavyje pasl?p? gyvyb?- judes? ir siel? - ir ji staiga atgijo ir ?m? šokti.

Žmogus turi gyvent kur gim? ir vaikas augo. Kitaip jis gyvena be kvap?, be gars?, be prisilietim? prisiminimo. Jis taip neturtingas, taip biednas. Be kvap?, be atospalvi?, be garso nuskamb?jim?, atoaidži?, be daikt? atsiskamb?jimo. Jis tada išauga ?šiaurus, piktas, aštrus, kaip peilis.

i'm a displaced person on my way home, in search for my home, retracing bits of past, looking for some recognisable traces of my past.

I'm totally disinterested in politics.... Yes. I live outside of the political world. Because I have no control. Because all my interest is in cinema, and not even all of cinema.