Peter Greenaway Quotes

Jerome was dyslexic until he was twelve, before it became fashionable. And he broke every pair of glasses I bought him. He hated wearing glasses. He was good at breaking things. Especially relationships. Just like his father.

Nagiko, I am waiting for you. Meet me at the library. Any library. Every library. Yours, Jerome.

I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable -- the delights of the flesh and the delights of literature. I have had the good fortune to bring them together and enjoy them together in full quantity.

His writing -- in so many languages -- made me a sign-post pointing east, west, north and south. I had shoes in German, stockings in French, gloves in Hebrew, a hat with a veil in Italian. He only kept me naked where I was most accustomed to wearing clothes.

This is where I begin to do the writing. I am now going to be the pen and not the paper.

Go on. Treat me like the page of a book. Your book.

You can't write. That's not writing. It's scribbling. Distasteful scribbling. Why can't you write properly?

Perhaps. I need writing. Don't ask me why -- just take out your pen and write your name on my arm -- go on.

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

My brother works for a forestry commission. He writes only in green ink to persuade his bosses to make it a standard ecological colour for all forestry business. I asked him what colour ink he would use if he gave up eating whale meat and worked for a whaling company. He said whales were colour blind.

You should be allowed to rub out and start again, it means that you are human. The purists are tedious, they tell you a mistake is like an enduring black mark. Nonsense -- better to be human than some infernal machine never going wrong.

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

Farewells can be both beautiful and despicable. Saying farewell to one who is loved is very complicated.

Isn't that why people keep diaries -- to be read by someone else? Why would they keep them otherwise?

There is nothing more splendid than the prospect of sitting in the morning before a new ink-stone and a sheet of white paper. The smell of the white paper is like the scent of the skin of a new lover who has just paid a surprise visit out of a rainy garden. And the black ink is like lacquered hair. And the quill? Well the quill is like the instrument of pleasure whose purpose is never in doubt but whose surprising efficiency one always -- always forgets.