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I can't think of anyone who has done anything remotely useful after the age of 80.
Peter Greenaway -
Benedictus bene dicap bene asian christian dominum nostrum amen.
Peter Greenaway
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I'm a Darwinian.
Peter Greenaway -
Atlas, the man who carries the world, becomes the book of the maps of the world. An example of man, or God, into book. Few have that honour.
Peter Greenaway -
Nun 1: Sir, it is only a play... with music. Do not distress yourself.
Peter Greenaway -
Grief: An emotional experience often brought about by a great sense of loss. The subject of this loss is completely immaterial.
Peter Greenaway -
It is Vesalius' Anatomy of Birth - a book of drawings and diagrams of human anatomy. Beautiful drawings but - as the pages turn - terrible in their frankness...
Peter Greenaway -
As for critics, one mediocre writer is more valuable than ten good critics. They are like haughty, barren spinsters lodged in a maternity ward.
Peter Greenaway
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There are basically only two subject matters in all Western culture: sex and death. We do have some ability to manipulate sex nowadays. We have no ability, and never will have, to manipulate death.
Peter Greenaway -
I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable - the delights of the flesh and the delights of literature. I have had the good fortune to bring them together and enjoy them together in full quantity.
Peter Greenaway -
A is for Adam and E is for Eve. B is for bile, blood and bones.
Peter Greenaway -
Prospero has always felt most at ease in a study, surrounded by books.
Peter Greenaway -
Words reproduce themselves pleasurably too.
Peter Greenaway -
As you probably know, I'm often accused of intellectual exhibitionism and all forms of elitism. Although I can understand this point of view, it's a rather wasted argument because, if we regard areas of information as being elite and therefore somehow not usable, it means our centre-ground of activity becomes very, very impoverished.
Peter Greenaway
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'Have you read all of them?'
Peter Greenaway -
Leaving slowly, / sucking in cold air round a warm tongue, / ennui synchronized to the pulse, / reports from a coiled trachea, / It is only irregular clocks...
Peter Greenaway -
The world is in his cloak - figures peer out of its folds - mythological figures and snakes and pigs and flowers, naked fauns and heavy-breasted sirens and horses' heads - they sprawl on the flagstones at his feet and peep out from under his arms...
Peter Greenaway -
It can hardly be said that Greenaway is unaware of his demoniac cleverness, but he unearths the nuggets buried in his work in a spirit of generosity. They are not so much possessions to be admired as gifts to be shared.
Peter Greenaway -
All religions have always hated females.
Peter Greenaway -
... I would certainly like to work with Dennehy again. When he was presented with the script he didn't know me from Adam, and why should he, small-time eccentric, esoteric Englishman that I am?
Peter Greenaway
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This is where I begin to do the writing. I am now going to be the pen and not the paper.
Peter Greenaway -
The film begins with a visual list of eight and a half Japanese Pachinko Parlours filmed in several Japanese cities - Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto.
Peter Greenaway -
Each word is pumped up with consonant cholesterol. It's full of fat words. The pages cream with subcutaneous fat. New letters are gilded like showy teeth, making comprehension constipated and exorbitantly metalled.
Peter Greenaway -
Cinema is far too rich and capable a medium to be merely left to the storytellers.
Peter Greenaway