Alejandro Jodorowsky quotes

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a Chilean-French filmmaker, writer, and artist known for his avant-garde and surreal works. His films and graphic novels have significantly influenced cult cinema and the comic book medium. He remains a celebrated figure for his visionary creativity and explorations of mysticism and spirituality. Here are 64 of his quotes:

Birds born in cages think that flying is a disease. (Alejandro Jodorowsky)
I don't live in France; I live in myself. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Normality is to be different. Every person is a different person. And one day you need to be aware of your difference. Aware that you are not the same as the others. That is to be normal. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Let the inner god that is in each one of us speak. The temple is your body, and the priest is your heart: it is from here that every awareness must begin. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
For art to be art it has to cure. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
I think the art of filmmaking is something you learn through actions, by doing it, not by learning theories. And as you do it, your mind starts to change. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
We only have problems we really want to have. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
We have to be very conscious of the fact that beneath every illness is a prohibition. A prohibition that comes from a superstition. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
The symbolic act of the death of the father is absolutely necessary, but it is also necessary to do it in an intelligent way, with lucidity and without resentment. If you perceive your father in a violent way, it is because you are not killing him: you are asking him to love you because you need it. But if you are able to see him positively, without his pedestal and without your fear, you are no longer begging him to love you in order for you to exist. And this is when you kill him, when you make him fall. But once you've knocked him down, it is necessary to rebuild him and repay him, because fathers have essential value, even if they are monsters: they give us life, they leave their imprint on certain parts of our being, and they allow us to become who we are in a conscious way. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Addictions come from shortages in infancy. People try to compensate this way. Alcoholism is generally produced from a shortage in mother's milk. And heroin addiction is usually due to a lack of being, the absence of recognition; the drug fills the emptiness of not being loved. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
I remember some artists who said this world isn't worth anything, that it is a pigsty, that we are going nowhere, that God is dead, and all those things. Bad literature is this. To expose your navel, to tell how you drank your morning coffee amid general disgust, with everything around you rotting. While the world is dying, I drink my coffee. Or I perform my little sex acts. This is old-fashioned. One must cross this neurotic curtain. (Alejandro Jodorowsky)
When we didn't make the picture, Dan O'Bannon needed to be interned in a mental institution for two years, suffering because we didn't get to do "Dune." And when he came out he wrote the script for "Alien." "Alien" was the reaction to not doing "Dune." Who would believe that? But it's true! View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Failure doesn't mean anything, it just means changing paths. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
One day, someone showed me a glass of water that was half full. And he said, "Is it half full or half empty?" So I drank the water. No more problem. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
I believe in mysticism, with an interior goal, and you are your own temple and your own priest. I dont believe anymore in religions, because you see today there are religious wars, prejudice, false morals, and the woman is despised. Religion is too old now; its from another century, its not for today. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
For a true artist, difficulties become opportunities and clouds become solid present. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
I live making comics. Comics is an industrial art but less suffering, because comics are for young people who are more adventurous. I do that. I live off comics, and then I write books, but when you want movies, you cannot make movies without money. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
But everyone in the world has a cross. Mine is mine, yours is yours: I only can make you conscious of your cross and, apart from that, you free yourself or not. This depends on you. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
No one fulfills himself fully. What is fulfilling oneself? Advancing as one can. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
When we do something we have never done, we are already on the road to healing. We must break the routines. (Alejandro Jodorowsky)
That is the marvel of true art, that no one has yet found a way to commercialize it. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
At that time they said I was crazy because I wanted to make a movie that was 14 or 16 hours. But now people do it. There are three-"Hobbit 1," "Hobbit 2," "Hobbit 3." Everything I wanted to do is possible to do today. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
The people with low level of consciousness look for someone else to affirm their value, but people with higher levels of consciousness, what they seek is someone to point out their defects so they can become better. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Once centenarian teacher who had the body of an adolescent told me he had studied martial arts. "Me, too," I answered. We were in Notre Dame, and he said, "Attack me." I put myself in a combat position, and he moved his left hand in such an incredibly beautiful way that while I looked at it, fascinated, he gave me a big slap. "Beauty is the most dangerous weapon," he warned. It took me a long time to understand. He used a secret Chinese practice, which consists of drawing a snake in the air with your hand to distract the enemy. And that is how beauty is: the most awful weapon. View quote
Alejandro Jodorowsky