Andrei Tarkovsky Quotes

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• I think a person needs to learn from childhood to find himself alone. It means to not be bored when you’re by yourself, because a person who finds himself bored when alone –as it seems to me– is in danger.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Mean, Thinking, Bored

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• If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Missing, Looks, Happens

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• Weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Winning, Men, Expression

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• Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I'd say that film is the sculpting of time.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Movie, Art, Able

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• Unspoken feelings are unforgettable.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Feelings, Unforgettable, Unspoken

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• The idea of infinity cannot be expressed in words or even described, but it can be apprehended through art, which makes infinity tangible. The absolute is only attainable through faith and in the creative act.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Ideas, Creative

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 39), 1986.

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• Art would be useless if the world were perfect.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Perfect, Would Be

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• It is a mistake to talk about the artist looking for his subject. In fact, the subject grows within him like a fruit and begins to demand expression. It is like childbirth. The poet has nothing to be proud of. He is not master of the situation, but a servant. Creative work is his only possible form of existence, and his every work is like a deed he has no power to annul. For him to be aware that the sequence of such deeds is due and ripe, that it lies in the very nature of things, he has to have faith in the idea; for only faith interlocks the system of images for which read system of life.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Mistake, Lying, Artist

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• Becoming an artist does not merely mean learning something, acquiring professional techniques and methods. Indeed, as someone has said, in order to write well you have to forget the grammar.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Motivational, Writing, Mean

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 88), 1986.

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• Being silent for a while is good. Words can't really express a person's emotions.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Emotion, Silent, Persons

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• IN ALL MY FILMS, IT SEEMED IMPORTANT TO ME TO REMIND THE AUDIENCE TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE NOT ALONE, LOST IN AN EMPTY UNIVERSE, BUT THAT THEY ARE CONNECTED BY INNUMERABLE THREADS WITH THEIR PAST AND PRESENT, THAT THROUGH CERTAIN MYSTICAL WAYS, EVERY HUMAN BEING REALIZES THE RAPPORT WITH THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF HUMANITY.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Past, Being Real

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• If we succeed with something, that is only because others are in need of what e have produced. And the more success we have with something, the more people require that we express it. So it goes without saying, as a result of this we in principle never win out, others win. We always lose

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Winning, People, Needs

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• It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all. We should long ago have become angels had we been capable of paying attention to the experience of art, and allowing ourselves to be changed in accordance with the ideals it expresses. Art only has the capacity, through shock and catharsis, to make the human soul receptive to good. It’s ridiculous to imagine that people can be taught to be good…Art can only give food – a jolt – the occasion – for psychical experience.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Angel, Long Ago

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• Art is born out of an ill-designed world.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, World, Born

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• I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Views, Two, People

  "Sculpting in Time: Tarkovsky The Great Russian Filmaker Discusses His Art". Book by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1989.

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• The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Ideas, Soul

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 42), 1986.

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• Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Men, Perfect

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• History is not Time; nor is evolution. They are both consequences. Time is a state: the flame in which there lives the salamander of the human soul.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Flames, Soul, Evolution

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 57), 1986.

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• We have forgotten to observe. Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Patterns, Forgotten, Observing

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• My purpose is to make films that will help people to live, even if they sometimes cause unhappiness

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  People, Purpose, Causes

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• People who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  People, Bored, Danger

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• What nobody seems to understand is that love can only be one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not love. If it involves less than total giving, it is not love. It is impotent; for the moment it is nothing.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Giving, Moments, Form

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 217), 1986.

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• A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Book, People, Different

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 177), 1986.

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• The film [Stalker] needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Theatre, Needs, Action

  "Sculpting in Time: Tarkovsky The Great Russian Filmaker Discusses His Art". Book by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1989.

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• Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Mean, Ideas

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 152), 1986.

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