Alejandro Jodorowsky Quotes

Nobody ever told me, 'Art is this.' This was good luck in a way because I would have had to spend half of my life forgetting everything that I had been told, which is what happens with most students in schools of fine arts.

The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.

I've always been creating, no one had to teach me how to create, I always made things.

The true self seeks release, not constraint. It doesn't want to be corseted in a sonnet or made to learn a system of musical notations. It wants liberation, which is why very often it fastens on the novel, for the novel seems spacious, undefined, free.

Art is something you can't teach, but you can inspire it.

To some extent I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that.

Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

I went to art school, I think it helped me a great deal because it taught me who I am.

I'm not a manufactured artist. Nobody taught me how to be a proper artist.

I never know what I'm going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I'm just the middleman.

I noticed the drama majors on campus when I was at Notre Dame. They just seemed to be freer spirits than the rest of us. There was joy in their work; they were the only ones studying something whose work made them happy. I envied that.

I enjoyed art in school. I've always done little drawings and stuff like that. I don't really know what I'm doing with the painting, but I experiment.

I never went to school for art or was told what to like or when. So every day is a learning process, like most of life.

Nobody ever told me what to read, or ever put poetry in my way.

The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.

Being an artist means ceasing to take seriously that very serious person we are when we are not an artist.

Composition is definitely what I'm born to do, and it came last.

Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint you can at it.

Being signed to a major label was never an option because I knew having the time to find out who you are without pressure from other people is so important.

Everything that I've ever made in my life is from my instinct.

I was kind of nervous to put 'Learning' out: it's a lot different. That's who I am. I'm going to push the boundaries.

I didn't spend my childhood trying to be a performer; it was a big surprise to me that this was what I was doing. But it has always felt quite natural to me. I wasn't taught to do what I do; I found out bit by bit.

You tend to find the best in yourself as an artist when you're challenged.

I've always known from a young age that creativity is natural.