Ingmar Bergman Quotes

Minus: Papa, I'm scared. When I was hugging Karin in the boat, reality burst open. Do you understand?

David: I do.

Minus: Reality burst open, and I tumbled out. It's like a dream. Anything can happen. Anything.

David: I know.

Minus: I can't live in this new world.

David: Yes, you can. But you must have something to hold on to.

Minus: What would that be? A god? Give me proof of God. You can't.

David: Yes, I can. But you have to listen carefully.

Minus: Yes, I need to listen.

David: I can only give you a hint of my own hope. It is to know that love exists as something real in the human world.

Minus: A special kind of love, I suppose?

David: All kinds, Minus. The highest and the lowest, the most absurd and the most sublime. All kinds of love.

Minus: And the longing for love?

David: Longing and denial. Trust and distrust.

Minus: Then love is the proof?

David: I don't know if love is proof of God's existence, or if love is God himself.

Minus: To you, love and God are the same thing.

David: That thought helps me in my emptiness and despair.

Minus: Tell me more, Papa.

David: Suddenly the emptiness turns into abundance, and despair into life. It's like a reprieve, Minus, from a death sentence.

Minus: Papa... If it is as you say, then Karin is surrounded by God, since we love her.

David: Yes.

Minus: Can that help her?

David: I believe so.

Minus: ... Papa, would you mind if I go for a run?

David: Off you go. I'll make dinner. See you in an hour.

Minus: ... Papa spoke to me.

Sécate las lágrimas y mira el fin con serenidad. Hubieras gozado más de la vida despreocupándote de la eternidad, pero es demasiado tarde. En este último instante goza al menos del prodigio de vivir en la verdad tangible antes de caer en la nada.

To the fanatical believer physical and spiritual suffering is beside the point, compared with salvation. That is why, to him, everything happening around him is irrelevant, a mirror-image, a mere will-o'-the-wisp. … I can really never get shot of them, the fanatics. Whether they appear as religious fanatics or vegetarian fanatics makes no odds. They're catastrophic people. These types whose whole cast of mind as it were looks beyond mere human beings toward some unknown goal. The terrible thing is the great power they often wield over their fellow human beings. Apart from the fact that I believe they suffer like the very devil, I've no sympathy for them.

ფილმი სიზმარივითაა. ფილმი მუსიკასავითაა. არც ერთი სხვა სახეობა ისე არ აღწევს სულის სიღრმეებში, როგორც კინოხელოვნება. მხედველობის ნერვის მცირედი გაღიზიანება, შოკის ეფექტი: ოცდაოთხი ამონათებული კადრი წამში, მათ შორის კი სიბნელეა, თუმცა მხედველობის ნერვი მის აღქმას ვერ ასწრებს.

I have always had the ability to attach my demons to my chariot. And they have been forced to make themselves useful.

Life has precisely the value one puts on it.

I was deeply in love with my mother. She was very beautiful and in many ways unattainable. She changed between being very cold and very warm, and she would reject us children on and off. You never quite knew what she would do. But I was very certain of one thing: I loved her passionately. That’s one of my earliest childhood memories. That I had such strong ties to my mother.

I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being. It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then.

Death: Do you never stop questioning?
Antonius Block: No. I never stop.

We're thankful for the horrors we are used to. The unknown ones are worst

If you have a faith, if you've some deep conviction, whether you're a Nazi or a Communist or what the hell else you are — then you can sacrifice yourself and others to your faith. But from the moment you've no faith — from that moment you live in a deep inner confusion — from then on you're exposed to what Strindberg calls 'the powers'.

I think I am a better ghost than I am a human being.

I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being - not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don't have to lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you needn't play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you're forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you're genuine or just a sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either. I understand why you don't speak, why you don't move, why you've created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire. You should go on with this part until it is played out, until it loses interest for you. Then you can leave it, just as you've left your other parts one by one.

I've never been much smitten by Catholicism. I've never been committed to any religious dogma of any sort. … For years the Catholics had me on their blacklist. Then along comes some sharp-witted pater and says 'Let's take this lad into the business, instead.' And I've been plagued by Catholic interpretations ever since. … I've never felt any attraction to Catholicism. Catholicism, I think, does have its attractions. But Protestantism is a wretched kettle of fish.

I was very cruel to actors and to other people. I think I was a very, very unpleasant young man. If I met the young Ingmar today, I think I would say, "You are very talented and I will see if I can help you, but I don't think I want anything else to do with you." I don't say I'm pleasant now, but I think I changed slowly in my 50's. At least I hope I've changed.