Douglas Sirk

There is a wonderful expression: seeing through a glass darkly. Everything, even life, is inevitably removed from you. You can't reach, or…

— Douglas Sirk

There arose a belief in style - and in banality. Banality encompassed politics, too, because it was a common belief that politics…

— Douglas Sirk

Ross Hunter was my assistant on Take Me to Town, He was a young man, an actor before that, and learned a…

— Douglas Sirk

At the time I belonged to the socialist party, and Hitler came to power.

— Douglas Sirk

In the 19th century, you had bourgeois art without politics - an almost frozen idea of what beauty is.

— Douglas Sirk

These happy endings all express the weak and sly promise that the world is not rotten and out of joint but meaningful…

— Douglas Sirk

A director in Hollywood in my time couldn't do what he wanted to do.

— Douglas Sirk

I worked for UFA as a set designer, you know.

— Douglas Sirk

At the same time, of course, Marxism arose - Rosa Luxembourg, Leninism, anarchism - and art became political.

— Douglas Sirk

My idea at this time, which was slowly developing, was to create a comedie humaine with little people, average people - samples…

— Douglas Sirk

The war was the end of an era, in art as well. And we were trying to create a new philosophy.

— Douglas Sirk

Rock Hudson was not an educated man, but that very beautiful body of his was putty in my hands.

— Douglas Sirk

I think the great artists, especially in literature, have always thought with the heart.

— Douglas Sirk

This is the dialectic - there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element…

— Douglas Sirk

I think the great artists (..) have always thought with the heart.

— Douglas Sirk

Throughout my pictures I employ a lighting which is not naturalistic.

— Douglas Sirk

Yes, I was hired by Universal because they needed a comedy director. They had seen Scandal and liked it. I saw an…

— Douglas Sirk

Intellectualism came very late to America. That's why Americans are so proud of it. I found very few real intellectuals in America.…

— Douglas Sirk

I never regarded my pictures as very much to be proud of, except in this, the craft, the style.

— Douglas Sirk

And it really began with Einstein. We attended his lectures. Now the theory of relativity remained - and still remains - only…

— Douglas Sirk

But I always wanted my characters to be more than cyphers for the failings of their world. And I never had to…

— Douglas Sirk

If I couldn't read, I couldn't live.

— Douglas Sirk

I considered that the homes that people live in exactly describe their lives.

— Douglas Sirk

If I can say one thing for my pictures, it is a certain craftsmanship. A thought which has gone into every angle.…

— Douglas Sirk

Your camera is the best critic there is. Critics never see as much as the camera does. It is more perceptive than…

— Douglas Sirk