Peter Greenaway quotes

Peter Greenaway is a British film director, screenwriter, and artist known for his visually striking and intellectually complex films. His work often blurs the boundaries between cinema, painting, and literature, exploring themes of art, history, and human desire. He is recognized as a unique voice in contemporary cinema, influencing filmmakers and artists worldwide. Here are 286 of his quotes:

As you probably know, I'm often accused of intellectual exhibitionism and all forms of elitism. Although I can understand this point of view, it's a rather wasted argument because, if we regard areas of information as being elite and therefore somehow not usable, it means our centre-ground of activity becomes very, very impoverished.

Peter Greenaway

On the other hand, I view the whole matter from a cosmic perspective. I don't take a position. I believe that there are no more positions to take, no certainties, no facts. Many people find this confusing about my films; they say I am hiding out behind irony. But from a cosmic viewpoint, it is eternally unimportant whether one lives or not.

Peter Greenaway

I also think that everyone has an elitist approach to his own art, a complex knowledge of it, whether he is a clockmaker or an engineer. And I think it's perfectly legitimate to make use of this knowledge because it enriches the overall texture of life.

Peter Greenaway

It's precisely on the Internet that the majority of the writing is terribly bad and uninteresting.

Peter Greenaway

Life is full of a thousand red herrings, and it takes the history of a civilisation to work out which are the red herrings and which aren't.

Peter Greenaway

Jean Renoir once suggested that most true creators have only one idea and spend their lives reworking it, but then very rapidly he added that most people don't have any ideas at all, so one idea is pretty amazing.

Peter Greenaway

Itch to read, scratch to understand.

Peter Greenaway

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.

Peter Greenaway

We all live to a formula. Maybe the secret lies in keeping that formula secret.

Peter Greenaway

What are you -- some kind of addict? Is this where you come to...

Peter Greenaway

The pretence that numbers are not the humble creation of man, but are the exacting language of the Universe and therefore possess the secret of all things, is comforting, terrifying and mesmeric.

Peter Greenaway

Whispering can be a rest from a noisy world of words.

Peter Greenaway

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

Peter Greenaway

The game Flights of Fancy or Reverse Strip Jump is played from as high a jumping-point as a competitor will dare. After each successful jump, the competitor is allowing to put on an article of clothing. Thirteen jumps is normally more than enough to see a competitor fully dressed for the day.

Peter Greenaway

A hand cannot write on itself.

Peter Greenaway

You can play lacrosse all over the world provided you know where the goalposts are.

Peter Greenaway

In practically every film you experience, you can see the director following the text. Illustrating the words first, making the pictures after, and, alas, so often not making pictures at all, but holding up the camera to do its mimetic worst.

Peter Greenaway

It seems to me that dominant cinema seems to require an empathy or a sympathy between the film and the audience which is basically to do with the manipulation of the emotions and it seems to me again -- and this is a very subjective position -- that most cinema seems to trivialise the emotions, sentimentalising or romanticising them.

Peter Greenaway

It serves the purpose of not serving a purpose, surely quite a valid one.

Peter Greenaway

I never go to the cinema. I can't stand sitting in the dark with strangers -- all of us obliged to share the same emotional experiences -- it's too intimate. I like to be emotional in private.

Peter Greenaway

Film is such an extraordinary rich medium which can handle so many different modes of operation, combining together in the same place all these extraordinary disciplines which may be executed in their own right -- music, writing, picture making of all kinds, and I often feel that some filmmakers make films with one eye closed and two hands tied behind their backs.

Peter Greenaway

To be an atheist you have to have ten thousand times more imagination than if you are a religious fundamentalist. You must take the responsibility to acquire information, digest and use it to understand what you can.

Peter Greenaway