Jonas Mekas Quotes

29 quotes in 561 categories

• In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets.
• I make home movies-therefore I live. I live-therefore I make home movies
• Since 1950 I have been keeping a film diary. I have been walking around with my Bolex and reacting to the immediate reality: situations, friends,…
• In Lithuania, I am known as a poet, and they don’t care about my cinema. In Europe they don’t know my poetry; in Europe, I…
• For an artist, to be normal is a disaster
• Seek the insignificant small but essential qualities, essential to life
• My life is essentially not so unique. On some deeper levels we feel the same, we know the same things. Therefore if I show my…
• Yes, I got my first Bolex camera a few weeks after being dropped in New York by the United Nations Refugee Organization. That was on…
• As a film-maker and a poet, I feel it's my duty to be an eye and an antenna to what's happening around me. I always…
• I always work only with friends, but it must be about them and myself. Because I film only very personal moments, nothing preplanned, staged or…
• In a meadow full of flowers, you cannot walk through and breathe those smells and see all those colors and remain angry. We have to…
• We need less perfect but more free films.
• I brought Yoko Ono to New York and gave her her first job there. I was editing a magazine called 'Film Culture.'
• I'm not an abstract artist; I leave that to others. To me, abstract art ended with Kazimir Malevich's 'Black Square.' To continue it is senseless.
• Most of my videos consist of fragments, one or two minutes long. They are haikus or sketches. I have thousands.
• Place means nothing to me. I can be at home anywhere.
• In 1962, we created the Filmmakers' Co-Op because nobody wanted to distribute our films. If we had the Internet in those days, we wouldn't have…
• There is no other way to break the frozen cinematic conventions than through a complete derangement of the official cinematic senses.
• Some cameras are heavier and need to be on tripods. Others are small enough to hide in your pocket. There are places where you don't…
• I'm working in a form of cinema that can be described, and has been described, as a diaristic form of cinema. In other words, with…

Browse Jonas Mekas Quotes by Category