Jonas Mekas Quotes

When you look at my pictures, you are seeing my life.

Perusing colorful storylines on the backs of book jackets, I realized that none of them could possibly be as dramatic as my life to date. Then sadly, I also realized I could never find the ending of my story from the safety of an armchair.

I see my albums as working diaries, as living scrapbooks of me and my life.

I used to think, 'How can I write my life story? I'm still living it.'

My music is about my life. If it's something that I've lived, then it's something that I've written about.

Other people are talking about writing books about my life, or about some of the things I've done. I find it strange, but I also feel it's my life and my story, and I guess I better be the one to get it on paper the way it actually happened.

Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees.

My autobiography was simply the story of my life.

All the movies that I make in some ways have to be the story of my life. There are different chapters in my life.

I told my whole life story in my book.

I think I have had a remarkable and colorful life, so I decided to share it.

Documenting one's life in the midst of living it is a strange pursuit.

Maybe I should say that memory interests me a great deal, because I think we all tell stories of our lives to ourselves as well as to other people. Well, women do, anyway. Women do this a lot. And I think when men get older, they do this too, but maybe in slightly different terms.

I don't put myself into the category of 'rock star writing his biography.' That's because we live our lives by falling into experiences. Things happen to us. Something you do takes hold of you, and then you do a lot of it.

I can't see an autobiography in my future. But who knows what might happen.

A film about my life? But I am not dead.

My 'Report to Greco' is not an autobiography.

Ultimately, everyone's life is complex, and it's good to show that.

I realized so much of my life hasn't been in a well-lit room, and I realized the importance of documenting my experiences as a way to memorialize them.

I do make films for personal reasons.

I've realized that I owe people a look behind the scenes of my own story, because I don't think anyone can have a true understanding of the music without an insight into where it came from.

It's very important to me I get my autobiography out before I die and someone else writes it and screws up my life.

When you write an autobiography, it has to be authentic.

Photography is very personal to me. God knows how many rolls of film I have that I've never shared.

Everyone has a life. I haven't had a particularly interesting one.