Alejandro Jodorowsky Quotes

An artist has to be selfish; otherwise, he's not true to his own art.

I paint what I see and not what others like to see.

There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression.

One is too taken up with all that one sees and hears in Paris, however strong one is, and what I do here [in Etretat] will at least have the merit of being unlike anyone else, at least I believe so, because it will simply be the expression of what I, and only I, have felt.

Satisfying myself is the point in filmmaking, in my mind.

I never wanted to dilute my private passion for the art by airing and arguing it in public.

Write because you love the art and the discipline, not because you're looking to sell something.

Either you live by the barometer of the music critics, or you live by your own. I choose the latter.

You can't expect to connect with everybody, and that's all right. The more I make films, I'm learning that you don't have to make films for everybody. A film can be made for a smaller group of people than that, and it still warrants an existence.

I don't feel I have to be Jackson Browne. Still, I like to say something.

I want to be an artist, not be in the business of making hit records. Once I figured that out, everything became clear.

Everyone will always have ideas about how to make your work better. Everyone has advice about how to end your play differently. Start it differently. And it's not about right or wrong. At the end of the day, it's your baby, and you know what's best.

I don't want to tell fans what to think or what to believe or whatever, but at the same time, some things just hit you very personally.

[Salomaybe] is my presentation, my vision of the world. Not so much to satisfy the audience at large.

The last thing I think about when I'm making music is its reception.

if I'd thought that nobody would like it as I was writing it, I would have written it even more. But I never think of the audience. I never think of people reading. I never think of people, period.

Seeing a play, listening to music - you'll always contextualize it in your own way. Whoever you are, wherever you are; I think that's really important.

Don't feel that you have to tailor your literature a particular way to please any school of ideology. There will emerge in its own right, effortlessly, some kind of ideological direction which is a reflection of your thinking and you want your thinking, above all.

I was not going to be an actor. I was an engineer in physics. That's what I did: I graduated with a physics degree, and I had become a little bit distressed that I'd have to work for somebody - anybody! And I thought, "I'm not going to make a mark on anything. If I can't express myself, then I don't know what the heck I'm going to do with this life." I think it was just one of those germs that said, "No, no, no, you've got to say things. You've got to tell people things. You've got to express your opinion in this life, because that's how you started."

I feel like if I were to play the game completely and just get myself in a giant bottle of nail polish and put myself on display, I would feel like I had somehow cosmically lost. I feel like I'm taking a bunch of the ingredients and using some of them but not all of them and shuffling around and making people think I'm doing my job.

I'm developed as an artist to accept the fact there are different points of view, but I believe in what I do and I have to stay with that.

My biggest advice would be to take the pictures you want to take. Don’t think about the marketplace, what sells or what an editor might say. And don’t think about style. It’s all bullshit and surface stuff. Style happens.

I want to do my own thing, and I'm trying to get closer to realizing that as a filmmaker.

The concern about what's too violent or what's too scary is something that I just completely don't let enter into my creative process. I feel like, if I spend a lot of time trying to worry about whether it will appeal to everyone and who will like it and who won't, and I try to please everyone, I'll just spread myself too thin and lose my mind.

My work is trying to at least define myself on my own terms, and then if other people enjoy things that's a lovely addition.