INGMAR BERGMAN

Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.

Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being that a belch is more satisfying.

I hope I never get so old I get religious.

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

My education was very tough.

The demons are innumerable, appear at the most inconvenient times, and create panic and terror. But I have learnt that if I can master the negative forces and harness them to my chariot, then they can work to my advantage.

I'm very, very lazy. I love to sit in a chair and look out the window and do nothing.

The doors between the old man today and the child are still open, wide open. I can stroll through my grandmother's house and know exactly where the pictures are, the furniture was, how it looked, the voice, the smells. I can move from my bed at night today to my childhood in less than a second.

I am extremely suspicious of dreams, apparitions and visions, both in literature and in films and plays. Perhaps it's because mental excesses of this sort smack too much of being 'arranged.'

I hate to travel. I don't go anywhere.

We always regret that we did not ask our parents more, really get to know them while they were alive.

Sometimes, I probably do mourn the fact that I no longer make films.

There are so many books I want to read. Difficult books. That's what I intend to do and what I'm longing for.

People ask what are my intentions with my films - my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct.

The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy.

The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny each other's existence. We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal.

Aging is not uncomplicated. Creativity is an extraordinary help against destructive demons.

When you're as chaotic as I am, you need a very firm structure in your life.

Mother was actually a great doer and organizer. All the special occasions were directed by mother.

I am very much aware of my own double self. The well-known one is very under control; everything is planned and very secure. The unknown one can be very unpleasant. I think this side is responsible for all the creative work - he is in touch with the child. He is not rational; he is impulsive and extremely emotional.

From an early age onward, it was said that 'Ingmar has no sense of humor.'

I think that for some time now I have been living with an anxiety which has had no tangible cause. It has been like having a toothache, without the conscientious dentist having been able to find anything wrong with the tooth or with the person as a whole.

There hasn't been anyone with whom I can discuss my scripts. Even when the film is done, there is no one I can show it to who gives his sincere opinion. There is silence.

I had a bad conscience until I discovered that having a bad conscience about something so gravely serious as leaving your children is an affectation, a way of achieving a little suffering that can't for a moment be equal to the suffering you've caused.

I am normally afraid of birds and have never dreamt of any bird in my life.