Peter Greenaway Quotes

Gonzalo threw many books into the bottom of the leaky vessel that took Prospero out on to the sea away from Italy and Europe into exile. Shakespeare does not, of course, elaborate what these volumes were. Prospero's Books speculates. There would need perhaps to be books on navigation and survival, there would need to be books for an elderly scholar to learn how to rear and educate a young daughter, how to colonise an island, farm it, subjugate its inhabitants, identify its plants and husband its wild beasts. There would need to be books to offer solace and advise patience and put past glory and present despondency into perspective. There would need to be books to encourage revenge.

Now, at this very minute, another thing is happening which we cannot hear because most paintings do not have a sound-track. Peter is inventing the word "simony" to explain ecclesiastical purchase-power, for which, since his Church later exercised it so expertly, Simon Magus ought to be revered as a patron not a rogue.

No Albert -- it's not God -- it's Michael. My lover. You vowed you would kill him -- and you did. And you vowed you would eat him. Now eat him.

What quaint English. They make an unpredictable linguistic duo.

He spoilt it -- he spoke.

Alas, despite wing implants, feathers and wax, and carnal associations with swans, we will never grow wings. Alas, any true flight we make will always be externally assisted. Alas, the best we can do is fall and believe ourselves flying.

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

This drawing is three quarters ball, one quarter philosopher, which might be about the right space to keep a philosopher in his place.

Roy, this is my wife, Georgina Spica -- she has a heart of gold and a body to match... and I am Albert Spica and I have a heart of gold and a great deal of money to match.

Now you've opened your mouth, do you expect me to lose interest?

Imagine a world without a fixed point.

A final word. Drowning by Numbers is a story of three women who murder their husbands -- one in a bath, one in the sea and one in a swimming pool. It is a black and ironic fairy-tale for adults, half invented by children who are innocently obsessed with sex and death -- especially death. It is a poetic, amoral tale told morally to support the belief that the good are seldom rewarded, the bad go largely unpunished and the innocent are always abused.

The word for smoke should look like smoke -- the word for rain should look like rain...

The game of Bees in the Trees is a variant of musical chairs and is best played with funeral music and in the open air. The object of the game is to sit down on a vacant chair when the music stops. If the chair sat in is occupied by bees, it is permissible to arrange a professional foul.

Shoes: gloves for the feet.