226 Quotes by Peter Greenaway

I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable, the delights of the flesh and the delights of literature.

I don’t think we’ve seen any cinema yet. I think we’ve seen 100 years of illustrated text.

My personal obsessions are much more interesting to me than other people’s.

What do you want art to give you? What do you want cultural experience to give you? Shouldn’t it be in-depth, profound experiences which have some satisfaction and can be retained in your four senses and your imagination for the rest of your life?

One of my heroes, almost necessarily from what I’m saying, of course, is Borges, who is a supreme master of doing thing – being a data bank – and the beauty of this economy is that he could have written War and Peace in three or four pages; who knows, it might have been a better book.

I certainly don’t believe you documentary filmmakers. Like me, you are involved in making fiction, and your fiction is just as well organized and just as well predicated, but the big difference between me and you is that I’m honest and you’re dishonest. I know I’m telling you lies.

I like a lot of glasses about – it highers the tone.

The start of a film is like a gateway, a formal entrance-point. The first three minutes of a film make great demands on an audience’s patience and credulity. A great deal has to be learnt very rapidly about place and attitude, character and intent and ambition.

If you never lived out your sexuality – it’s a great force, and if you try to fight it, what does that create? Energy: positive and negative, self-loathing.