Quotes from Luis Bunuel

Hay que haber comenzado a perder la memoria, aunque sea sólo a retazos, para darse cuenta de que esta memoria es lo que constituye toda nuestra vida. (...) Nuestra memoria es nuestra coherencia, nuestra razón, nuestra acción, nuestro sentimiento.

Nunca olvidaré cómo me impresionó, a mí y a toda la sala por cierto, el primer travelling que vi. En la pantalla, una cara avanzaba hacia nosotros, cada vez más grande, como si fuera a tragársenos.

Uno de los grandes problemas de México es un nacionalismo llevado hasta el extremo que delata un profundo complejo de inferioridad.

Si uno de los pilotos pasaba por nuestro lado con cara seria, pensaba. «Se acabó, Estamos perdidos. Se lo leo en la cara.» Si, por el contrario, pasaba sonriendo amablemente, me decía: «La cosa debe de estar muy mal. Quiere tranquilizarnos.

No obstante, los Noailles me escribieron para preguntarme si no podría encontrar algún trabajo interesante para Aldous Huxley. ¡Deliciosa ingenuidad!

Al término de esta última proyección, la quinta o sexta, se lanzó hacia mí, lleno de alegría, y me dijo: —¡Ya está, Luis, es formidable, lo he entendido todo! Ahora fui yo quien se quedó perplejo. La película narraba una historia extremadamente sencilla, a mi modo de ver. ¿Qué había en ella tan difícil de entender?

Auch das praktische Leben ist ein schwarzes Loch, das uns in den Tod führt. Revolution, Anarchie, Freiheit sind der Lohn des Denkens. Sie haben nur einen einzigen Thron, unseren Kopf.

Sometimes, watching a movie is a bit like being raped.

Age is something that doesn't matter unless you're a cheese

I can't help feeling that there is no beauty without hope, struggle, and conquest.

Salvador Dalí seduced many ladies, particularly American ladies, but these seductions usually consisted of stripping them naked in his apartment, frying a couple of eggs, putting them on the woman's shoulders and, without a word, showing them the door.

All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence.

Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.

Even today, I've no idea what the truth is, or what I did with it.

Today`s culture is unfortunately inseparable from economic and military power. A ruling nation can impose its culture and give a worldwide fame to a second-rate writer like (Ernest Hemingway). (John Steinbeck) is important due to American guns. Had (John Dos Passos) and (William Faulkner) been born in Paraguay or in Turkey, who`d read them?

I also remember being struck by de Sade's will, in which he asked that his ashes be scattered to the four corners of the earth in the hope that humankind would forget both his writings and his name. I'd like to be able to make that demand; commemorative ceremonies are not only false but dangerous, as are all statues of famous men. Long live forgetfulness, I've always said—the only dignity I see is in oblivion.

The bar . . . is an exercise in solitude. Above all else, it must be quiet, dark, very comfortable - and, contrary to modern mores, no music of any kind, no matter how faint. In sum, there should be no more than a dozen tables, and a client that doesn't like to talk.

Bound, elbow to elbow, darkness and night entered the dwelling.

The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all.

I would give my life for a man who is looking for the truth. But I would gladly kill a man who thinks that he has found the truth.

Don't ask me my opinions on art, because I don't have any. Aesthetic concerns have played a relatively minor role in my life, and I have to smile when a critic talks, for example, of my "palette". I find it impossible to spend hours in galleries analyzing and gesticulating.

Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese

Mystery is the essential element of every work of art.