Ingmar Bergman
Not a day has gone by in my life when I haven't thought about death.Collection: Death
From an early age onward, it was said that 'Ingmar has no sense of humor.'Collection: Age
Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.Collection: Art
My pictures are always part of my thinking, and my emotions, tensions, dreams, desires.Collection: Dreams
I am extremely suspicious of dreams, apparitions and visions, both in literature and in films and plays. Perhaps it's because mental excesses of this sort smack too much of being 'arranged.'Collection: Dreams
I hope I never get so old I get religious.Collection: Religion
I hate to travel. I don't go anywhere.Collection: Travel
Life wasn't about freeing up human souls. It was about creating obedient slaves in the hierarchical construction of the society - with God at the top, then the king and then the father.Collection: Society
The anger and the creativity are so closely intertwined with me, and there's plenty of anger left.Collection: Anger
We didn't know that Mother had gone through a passionate love affair or that Father suffered from severe depression. Mother was preparing to break out of her marriage, Father threatening to take his own life.Collection: Marriage
Writing is boring, very boring, and it takes so much patience.Collection: Patience
I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.
For me, the human face is the most important subject of the cinema.
The demons are innumerable, appear at the most inconvenient times, and create panic and terror. But I have learnt that if I can master the negative forces and harness them to my chariot, then they can work to my advantage.
I'm very, very lazy. I love to sit in a chair and look out the window and do nothing.
Aging is not uncomplicated. Creativity is an extraordinary help against destructive demons.
The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy.
I think that for some time now I have been living with an anxiety which has had no tangible cause. It has been like having a toothache, without the conscientious dentist having been able to find anything wrong with the tooth or with the person as a whole.
There is something joyous about not talking.
If I don't create, I don't exist.
The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny each other's existence. We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal.
When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying. But now I think it a very, very wise arrangement. It's like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss about.
In 'The Serpent's Egg,' I created a Berlin which no one recognized, not even I.
I have always appreciated the honest brutality of the international film world. One need never doubt one's worth in the market. Mine was zero.
Mother was actually a great doer and organizer. All the special occasions were directed by mother.
There hasn't been anyone with whom I can discuss my scripts. Even when the film is done, there is no one I can show it to who gives his sincere opinion. There is silence.
When I'm on Faro, I'm never lonely.
I am forever living in my childhood.
I have a feeling of complete balance. The sea, the house, the loneliness, the light. Everything is clearer. Much more precise. I have the feeling that I am living on a limit, and I'm crossing that limit sometimes.
I was very much in love with my mother. She was a very warm and a very cold woman. When she was warm, I tried to come close to her. But she could be very cold and rejecting.
People ask what are my intentions with my films - my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct.
The doors between the old man today and the child are still open, wide open. I can stroll through my grandmother's house and know exactly where the pictures are, the furniture was, how it looked, the voice, the smells. I can move from my bed at night today to my childhood in less than a second.
When you're as chaotic as I am, you need a very firm structure in your life.
I make all my decisions on intuition.
I always work with 18 friends.
Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being that a belch is more satisfying.
I am normally afraid of birds and have never dreamt of any bird in my life.
I was booed at the premiere of 'Miss Julie,' a remarkably stimulating experience.
There are so many books I want to read. Difficult books. That's what I intend to do and what I'm longing for.
I haven't put an ounce of effort into my families. I never have.
If I let myself go, nothing will get done.
I was bloody ill-tempered when I was young.
I don't watch my own films very often. I become so jittery and ready to cry... and miserable. I think it's awful.
I dream about doing a film about once a week.
The only thing I consider appalling would be to suddenly become a vegetable and a burden on other people. A soul slowly dying out, trapped in a body in which the insides gradually sabotage me - that, I think, would be terrifying.
We always regret that we did not ask our parents more, really get to know them while they were alive.
My education was very tough.
On a personal level, there are many people who have meant a great deal to me. My father and mother were certainly of vital importance, not only in themselves but because they created a world for me to revolt against.
When you finish a film, you never want to see it again.
Now I want to make it plain that 'The Virgin Spring' must be regarded as an aberration. It's touristic, a lousy imitation of Kurosawa.