Peter Greenaway

Painting is the supreme form of expression; you don't need to 'read' painting.

— Peter Greenaway

If you're a Shakespeare fan, isn't that a way to negotiate sex and death?

— Peter Greenaway

I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself.

— Peter Greenaway

There's no such thing as history, only historians. That's how we know about the past.

— Peter Greenaway

I really, sincerely believe that one should trust the work, and not the author.

— Peter Greenaway

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

— Peter Greenaway

I don't think we've seen any cinema yet. I think we've seen 100 years of illustrated text.

— Peter Greenaway

I got in trouble with the stern-faced Russians who didn't want me to create a guy who is mortal.

— Peter Greenaway

That comes from most people having an American film model in their heads which is nothing but a total illusionary masturbatory massage.

— Peter Greenaway

I still would like you to feel the enthusiasm that all those people felt in the twenties and thirties, that indeed we…

— Peter Greenaway

I don't want to become an ivory tower filmmaker. That sounds peculiar, but I want to be a mainstream filmmaker. I want…

— Peter Greenaway

“I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable, the delights of the flesh and the delights of…

— Peter Greenaway

What do you want art to give you? What do you want cultural experience to give you? Shouldn't it be in-depth, profound…

— Peter Greenaway

Cinema ceases to be passive and becomes active: you, the audience, are now, in some senses, in charge of the filmmaking process.…

— Peter Greenaway

Some people would say again that my attitudes are cold and cerebral; I suppose if you're thinking about American sentimental movies, I…

— Peter Greenaway

Try this experiment: Pick a famous movie - 'Casablanca,' say - and summarize the plot in one sentence. Is that plot you…

— Peter Greenaway

The start of a film is like a gateway, a formal entrance-point. The first three minutes of a film make great demands…

— Peter Greenaway

I have a very, very secret drive to become a dilettante, without the pejorative overtones or the obligation to produce myself. There's…

— Peter Greenaway

Tulse Luper, who without too many confessions, in a sense, is a fictive version of me. I have to say he has…

— Peter Greenaway

Cinema doesn't connect with the body as artists have in two thousand years of painting, using the nude as the central figure…

— Peter Greenaway

We have to move away from the concept of screening in cinemas. This can be achieved with the new technologies. I enjoy…

— Peter Greenaway

I think that films or indeed any art work should be made in a way that they are infinitely viewable; so that…

— Peter Greenaway

Here was opportunity to make an audience walk and move, be sociable in a way never dreamed of by the rigors of…

— Peter Greenaway

Many quite popular films are filled with violence. I think the difference between those and my films is that I show the…

— Peter Greenaway

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

— Peter Greenaway

We have to change the educational curricula and put a lot more emphasis on how important seeing and looking is.

— Peter Greenaway

Anybody who writes a diary insists it must be read by someone else.

— Peter Greenaway

Eisenstein was a good editor. I was trained as a film editor, and I've no doubt that the editor is key to…

— Peter Greenaway

If every man is supposed to think of sex once every nine minutes, what on earth does he think of in the…

— Peter Greenaway

My personal obsessions are much more interesting to me than other people's.

— Peter Greenaway

There is visual illiteracy with text-oriented films like bloody 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord of the Rings.'.

— Peter Greenaway

American actors are coy. We all have pricks and cunts, or are you different from the rest of us?

— Peter Greenaway

I do indeed think that cinema is mortal. There is a lot of evidence already that it is dying on its feet.

— Peter Greenaway

I'm sorry - you know, culture is elitist. Culture has to be elitist: it's about seeing and knowing and about knowledge.

— Peter Greenaway

I think it is really important to be in some way provocative -- either intellectually or viscerally -- in the films one…

— Peter Greenaway

The best painting is totally non-narrative. It doesn't have to tell you a story.

— Peter Greenaway

The Sistine Chapel is an extraordinary work of education - it lays out all the early books of the Bible.

— Peter Greenaway

We have more than enough deodorised, over-the-top, sentimental cinema. Let's try to bring a little human intelligence into things. It can be…

— Peter Greenaway

Whether you're Godard or Almodovar or Scorsese, it's text, text, text. Everything begins with the text, and this is a source of…

— Peter Greenaway

Only cinema narrows its concern down to its content, that is to its story. It should, instead, concern itself with its form,…

— Peter Greenaway