73 Quotes by Krzysztof Kieślowski

The realm of superstitions, fortune-telling, presentiments, intuition, dreams, all this is the inner life of a human being, and all this is the hardest thing to film.

Real artists find answers. The knowledge of the artisan is within the confines of his skills. For example, I know a lot about lenses, about the editing room. I know what the different buttons on the camera are for. I know more or less how to use a microphone. I know all that, but that's not real knowledge. Real knowledge is knowing how to live, why we live, things like that.

You make films to give people something, to transport them somewhere else, and it doesn't matter if you transport them to a world of intuition or a world of intellect...The realm of superstitions, fortune-telling, presentiments, intuition, dreams, all this is the inner life of a human being, and all this is the hardest thing to film... I've been trying to get there from the beginning. I'm somebody who doesn't know, somebody who's searching.

The films should be influenced by the individual commandments to the same degree that the commandments influence our daily lives.

I like chance meetings – life is full of them. Every day, without realising it, I pass people whom I should know.

I have one good characteristic: I’m a pessimist, so I always imagine the worst – always. To me, the future is a black hole.

That’s the greatest sin a director can commit; to make a film simply because he wants to make a film.

I don’t like myself very much, so i try not to observe myself too often. I made a documentary once entitled Talking Heads. I asked people two questions: “Who are you” and “What do you want?” Afterwards, I asked myself those questions. I realized that I didn’t have any answers. I don’t know who I am, and I don’t know what I want. If anything, I’d like some peace and quiet, but I’ve never achieved it, and I probably never will. So I will never have what I really want.

Different people in different parts of the world can be thinking the same thoughts at the same time. It’s an obsession of mine: that different people in different places are thinking the same thing but for different reasons. I try to make films which connect people.