Bernal Quotes & Sayings

Los Cabos has been an amalgam of many cultures that have been coming here. There have been beautiful Jesuit missions for example, in many places around this area. The towns are incredible. But there is a very strong Mexicanized culture here that exists because people from different parts of Mexico have come to live here. — Gael Garcia Bernal

It's not easy to act, but to direct to act. It goes form one place to the next. It's not heading for the punchline, and also it's not about scoring goals. It's about passing the ball, and the goals will come by themselves. — Gael Garcia Bernal

The psychology of a complex mind must differ almost as much from that of a simple, mechanized mind as its psychology would from ours; because something that must underlie and perhaps be even greater than sex is involved. — John Desmond Bernal

I love rehearsals and I love creating a character, sticking with it until you have something to tell. It's always different though. Sometimes a director will tell you from day one what they want. Then you throw in your idea. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I always wanted to act, but I never thought it would be my profession. I thought that I'd end up doing other things, but that in the meantime I'd do plays. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Doing films in Latin America is like an act of faith. I mean, you really have to believe in what you're doing because if not, you feel like it's a waste of time because you might as well be doing something that at least pays you the rent. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I don't know, a lot of people go crazy about 'Breaking Bad,' but I don't like the soap opera aspect of it and only following one character. I like the context to all of it, all the pieces, like 'The Wire.' It's more about the state of things; it's not about the narrative of a person. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Political and social events must also be effective, but not in a very obvious fashion. But political confusion and prolonged peace undoubtedly affect creative thought but whether they respectively hinder or help it is not at all certain. — John Desmond Bernal

Alexander Gonzalez Inarritu is a great director. He's the one I first worked with. He's amazing. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In England, more than in any other country, science is felt rather than thought ... A defect of the English is their almost complete lack of systematic thinking. Science to them consists of a number of successful raids into the unknown. — John Desmond Bernal

Pauling was shocked by the freedom with which the X-ray crystallographers of the time, including particularly Astbury, played with the intimate chemical structure of their models. They seemed to think that if the atoms were arranged in the right order and about the right distance apart, that was all that mattered, that no further restrictions need to be put on them. — J. D. Bernal

Work not of enthusiasm but of love, conscious of duty-which means self-denial. — Salvador Bernal

If anybody is interested in listening to good modern music, I would recommend Jim Fassett, 'Symphony of the Birds.' It's really beautiful ... with real birds. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I'm never going to be able to leave Mexico, really. It would be foolish of me to do it. I would be wasting such a great opportunity that the accident of life, or destiny, gave me, which is to be Mexican. If we would make 'Lord of the Rings' analogies, I think Mexico City is Middle-earth. That's where the fight of humanity is. — Gael Garcia Bernal

As the whole conquest never put the crown to any expense. — Bernal Diaz Del Castillo

I asked the producers when I was doing 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' if they could give me a VHS recording of the film that I could show to my family, because in Mexico and Latin America, when you do a film, you don't expect anybody to see it, especially not in the cinema. — Gael Garcia Bernal

As a scientist Miss [Rosalind] Franklin was distinguished by extreme clarity and perfection in everything she undertook. Her photographs are among the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken. — John Desmond Bernal

I was asked to go to Cannes to present Amores Perros. And little did I know that this film would be huge. I saw it for the first time in Cannes, and it was the first time I'd seen myself on such a big screen. And it had a huge impact on me - it was the strangest feeling. — Gael Garcia Bernal

The relevance of Marxism to science is that it removes it from its imagined position of complete detachment and shows it as a part, but a critically important part, of economy and social development. — John Desmond Bernal

Naturalism aimed at giving the primitive wishes full play but failed because these wishes are too primitive, too infantile, too inconsistent with themselves to be satisfied even by the greatest license. — John Desmond Bernal

A part of sexuality may go to research, and a much larger part must lead to aesthetic creation. The art of the future will, because of the very opportunities and materials it will have at its command, need an infinitely stronger formative impulse than it does now. — John Desmond Bernal

Life is a partial, continuous, progressive, multiform and conditionally interactive self-realization of the potentialities of atomic electron states. — John Desmond Bernal

We came to serve God and to get rich, as all men wish to do. — Bernal Diaz Del Castillo

The greater the man, the more he is soaked in the atmosphere of his time; only thus can he get a wide enough grasp of it to be able to change substantially the pattern of knowledge and action. — John Desmond Bernal

One of the questions on which clarity of thinking is now most necessary is that of the relation between the methods of science and of Marxist philosophy. Although much has already been written on the subject, yet there is still an enormous amount of confusion and contradictory statement. — John Desmond Bernal

Scientific corporations might well become almost independent states and be enabled to undertake their largest experiments without consulting the outside world - a world which would be less and less able to judge what the experiments were about. — John Desmond Bernal

The beauty of life is, therefore, geometrical beauty of a type that Plato would have much appreciated. — John Desmond Bernal

As experimentation becomes more complex, the need for the co-operation in it of technical elements from outside becomes greater and the modern laboratory tends increasingly to resemble the factory and to employ in its service increasing numbers of purely routine workers. — John Desmond Bernal

Fucking outer mongolia! — Rafael Bernal

The region of the mysterious is rapidly shrinking. — John Desmond Bernal

Migration is as natural as breathing, as eating, as sleeping. It is part of life, part of nature. So we have to find a way of establishing a proper kind of scenario for modern migration to exist. And when I say 'we,' I mean the world. We need to find ways of making that migration not forced. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Let Your Imagination Take Flight — Jordan Bernal

The problem is essentially that of communications to an army in action. After a rapid advance communications become disorganized, and there is a temporary halting until they are again in working order. — John Desmond Bernal

Nothing is more prejudicial to war than talk. — Bernal Diaz Del Castillo

In order to do 'Amores Perros,' I had to skip some time at drama school, so the director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu came up with a great Latin American solution, which was to say I had a tropical disease and had to stay in Mexico for a while. Everyone believed me. — Gael Garcia Bernal

My place is no place for a lady."
Luisa cleared her throat in annoyance. Javier flashed a disarming smile at her. "Luisa, love, you are no longer a lady. You're a queen. — Karina Halle

As actors, we don't shy away from saying, 'I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to meet girls.' Directors cannot say the same thing. — Gael Garcia Bernal

So many of the chemical reactions occurring in living systems have been shown to be catalytic processes occurring isothermally on the surface of specific proteins, referred to as enzymes, that it seems fairly safe to assume that all are of this nature and that the proteins are the necessary basis for carrying out the processes that we call life. — John Desmond Bernal

I want to direct every now and then, but I don't want to be a director. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In Mexico you have death very close. That's true for all human beings because it's a part of life, but in Mexico, death can be found in many things. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In my own field, x-ray crystallography, we used to work out the structure of minerals by various dodges which we never bothered to write down, we just used them. Then Linus Pauling came along to the laboratory, saw what we were doing and wrote out what we now call Pauling's Rules. We had all been using Pauling's Rules for about three or four years before Pauling told us what the rules were. — J. D. Bernal

There's no such thing as a specific authenticity to what Mexico is, because Mexico is incredibly complex and varied, and the food is completely different if you travel 50 kilometers. It just changes all the time. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I think in a sense seeing how films have changed me and seeing how fiction moves me more than facts in many ways, and I think that I can talk for many people that fiction moves us more than real life, it certainly helps us to set forth on this a journey of a utopia, which can never be achieved. — Gael Garcia Bernal

There is something about the live performance of an orchestra that makes it very different to a film. With a film, you can rewrite it in a way with the material you have, and in rehearsals, you're really trying out different things. In an orchestra, you can't do that. They separate as soon as the performance factor comes into play. — Gael Garcia Bernal

If you ask me, houses shouldn't have been built down here. These little block-long streets cease abruptly at the open space that remains on the side of the hill, and the hill is angry that development has crept so close. It whips these pathetic homes with a battering, constant wind. It sends soggy clouds to sit damply atop the roofs, trickling stagnant moisture, birthing deep green molds. It sends its monsters, the horrifying Jerusalem crickets, up from the soil to invade basement apartments, looking like greasy, translucent alien insects. They drive me crying into the bathroom to strategize their eviction from my home. — Michelle Tea

Talking about food is like talking about your dreams. Everyone has something to say. We all have to eat, it's just what we eat which differs. Some people eat for fuel and I feel bad for them. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In Mexico, theater is very underground, so if you're a theater actor it's very difficult to make a living. But it's also a very beautiful pathway to knowledge and to an open education. — Gael Garcia Bernal

The collective experience of watching a great film together in a room is a transcendent moment that will never die. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I'm addicted to avocados, and I'll put them with anything, particularly chillies. Can you imagine if they became extinct? That would be like the apocalypse, no? — Gael Garcia Bernal

Histories are to educate so that we understand better for ourselves and for motivation. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In Latin America, you don't do things for the money because there is no money. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In science men have learned consciously to subordinate themselves to a common purpose without losing the individuality of their achievements. Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues, and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors. In science men collaborate not because they are forced to by superior authority or because they blindly follow some chosen leader, but because they realize that only in this willing collaboration can each man find his goal. — John Desmond Bernal

I would love to work with Martin Scorsese. — Gael Garcia Bernal

The recognition of the art that informs all pure science need not mean the abandonment for it of all present art, rather it will mean the completion of the transformation of art that has already begun. — John Desmond Bernal

In English, I'm a little bit limited. I speak English as a second language, and that's a little limitation that I have to work around and I have to use it to my favor. So, yes, that's why I end up wanting to do more things in Latin America. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Because of his supernatural outlook, he could always work very calmly and effectively and finish things on time. This was a reflection of the reality of a harmonious and attractive blend of prayer and action. It clearly showed that the sensibilities of a contemplative soul in no way lead to agitation or nervousness. — Salvador Bernal

My parents separated when I was very small. I grew up with my mother, and I was a single child then. She was very independent, doing her things and having fun alone and working. — Gael Garcia Bernal

'Motorcycle Diaries' had the best costumes - that battered jacket and those linen shirts. I wear linen shirts in real life, too, and I have a nice, simple number I got handed down. As a father, you just stop buying stuff for yourself. It's all for the kids. — Gael Garcia Bernal

He simply contemplated human realities from a divine perspective. — Salvador Bernal

You know, Motorcycle Diaries has no incredible stories, no sudden plot twists, it doesn't play that way. It's about recognizing that instance of change and embracing it. — Gael Garcia Bernal

The only way of learning the method of science is the long and bitter way of personal experience. — John Desmond Bernal

His mouth was a little too wide and snaked from corner to corner. His nose had been broken a few times, and when you looked at him straight on like I was doing as I stared at him across the circle bar, you could really tell. But his eyes were beautiful, cunning and otherworldly. His hair was a controlled mess; wispy dark strands that swooped across his forehead with long sideburns. He had high cheekbones, a strong jawline. When you combined all the parts, they equaled so much more than the sum. He was exotically, dangerously beautiful.
He'd been mine once. He'd broken my heart once.
And he was here to kill me. He only needed to do that once, too. — Karina Halle

When confronted with a clear definition of what it is to be Mexican, we encounter ourselves in a never ending allegory of mixes and chaos. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Texas is a country in its own. It's made up of half Mexico/half United States but completed mixed. I don't mean to draw a generalization but it is a place, a territory, that's really made up of all these encounters, you know? — Gael Garcia Bernal

Democracy should be practiced not every six years, but every day. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Comedy requires a lot of energy. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In general, I hate films that are overtly either very masculine or very feminine, you know? The same way that I don't like a war movie about soldiers smashing people's heads. But a chick flick I like would be Cassavetes' movies. 'A Woman Under the Influence,' 'Husbands.' — Gael Garcia Bernal

Music is really nothing if you think about it - it only becomes something when somebody listens to it. And then it becomes uncontrollable. — Gael Garcia Bernal

The full area of ignorance is not mapped. We are at present only exploring the fringes. — John Desmond Bernal

Let's not give the electoral process so much importance. We have to be cynical about it. Let's give importance to the real democracy that's constructed on a day-to-day basis. That's my hopeful perspective on it. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I go with the flow. Whatever music you play for me, I'll dance. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In fact, we will have to give up taking things for granted, even the apparently simple things. We have to learn to understand nature and not merely to observe it and endure what it imposes on us. Stupidity, from being an amiable individual defect, has become a social crime. — John Desmond Bernal

I think the water dictates how food will taste in a country. In England the apples taste unlike apples grown in any other place. England is an island, there's a lot of salt in the air and in the water. I think that has something to do with it. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Recently I've been doing risottos. Some of them have been amazing. Some of them, not all of them. — Gael Garcia Bernal

All that glitters may not be gold, but at least it contains free electrons. — John Desmond Bernal

When it's good, cinema can be one of the most important things in a person's life. A film can be a catalyst for change. You witness this and it is an incredibly spiritual experience that I'd never lived before; well, maybe only in a football match. — Gael Garcia Bernal

It's very difficult to raise money, especially in the United States, for independent movies. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Great feeling of enthusiasm..this human component began to fade away, leaving only that supernatural enthusisam which must always be at the root of our perseverance. — Salvador Bernal

Every democracy is constructed day-to-day. And the electoral process reduces and minimalizes every single aspect of human complexity. We're putting it into pamphlets. We're doing a publicity show. We're becoming symbols. — Gael Garcia Bernal

We think that democracy can change a lot of things, but we're being fooled, because democracy is not the election. We've been taught that democracy is having elections. And it isn't. Elections are the most horrendous aspect of democracy. It's the most mundane, trivial, disappointing, dirty aspect. — Gael Garcia Bernal

You can't be happy in a place like London when you don't have money. — Gael Garcia Bernal

The type of music we know as classical music began with rich people hiring musicians or owning them in a way. Without funding, it's very hard to have this experience. Be it state money or private money, there has to be someone dedicated to raising the money. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Them. We were the persons who made this good beginning, and it was not until two years later, when we had made the conquest, and introduced good morals and better manners among the inhabitants, that the pious Franciscan brothers arrived, and three or four years after the virtuous monks of the Dominican order, who further continued the good work, and spread Christianity through the country. The first part of the work, however, next to the Almighty, was done by us, the true Conquistadores, who subdued the country, and by the Brothers of Charity, who accompanied — Bernal Diaz Del Castillo

Men will not be content to manufacture life: they will want to improve on it. — John Desmond Bernal

I've never cared for the idea of a career path, or where a film might 'take me.' My love is for acting not money, so I only take on roles that I find challenging, in stories I find interesting. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I think the best thing I can say about it - and I think the best thing you can say about anything, really - is that 'The Motorcycle Diaries' made me feel like my home was bigger; it made me feel at home anywhere in Latin America. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I always laugh a lot when I see the dramas that I end up doing. I see myself behaving very seriously and I'm like, 'What is this?' — Gael Garcia Bernal

Life certainly points it out to you - 'you can go this way or the other way.' You have to decide and it's a very strong decision because, would you sleep well knowing that you're living in the best place, but you're letting the place where you should live alone? — Gael Garcia Bernal

I was pretty excited to meet Cate Blanchett. She's great, she's amazing, I think she's one of the most beautiful women in the universe. And I mean the universe, not the world. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In Mexico we have a trick - add a crystal of salt to the kettle and the tea tastes better, almost English. But after four pots, your kettle's broken. — Gael Garcia Bernal

We all have a cross-gender character: Every woman has a man that they can play, and every man has a woman that they can play. — Gael Garcia Bernal

A boxing workout is the heaviest thing, but it's the best. The worst part is that boxing gyms are the smelliest things in the universe. You have to lie down on the floor, where everyone has been sweating and spitting, and do 1,000 situps and push-ups. — Gael Garcia Bernal

[In eighteenth-century Britain] engineers for the most began as simple workmen, skilful and ambitious but usually illiterate and self-taught. They were either millwrights like Bramah, mechanics like Murdoch and George Stephenson, or smiths like Newcomen and Maudslay. — John Desmond Bernal

Talent survives and remains while beauty is diluted. — Gael Garcia Bernal

A love relationship has always been shaped by the context and times we live in. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I grew up with a lot of exiles from Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Colombia - I grew up with them, and I gained a family; I gained friends. — Gael Garcia Bernal

It's difficult to act in a language that's not your own. It takes a long time to put your head around it and feel confident with it. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I believe fervently in the nature, in truth and imagination, I believe in the blood, in life, words, and motivations. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I was brought up the Mexican way, where actors are paid very little and every part you take is an act of faith. If people respect that, then great. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Marxists have some way of analyzing the development of affairs which enables them to judge far in advance of scientific thinkers what the trend of social and economic development is to be. — John Desmond Bernal