Bier Quotes & Sayings

In a way, the whole notion of a blueprint of a building is not that different from a script for a movie. A sequence of spaces, which is what you do as an architect, is really the same as a sequence of scenes. — Susanne Bier

To her bier Comes the year Not with weeping and distress, as mortals do, But, to guide her way to it, All the trees have torches lit; Blazing red the maples shine the woodlands through ... — Lucy Larcom

For me, grief is a static thing, and my movies have an extremely dynamic sort of movement. — Susanne Bier

For years, whenever I'd been travelling and came back to Copenhagen, I'd think: 'People are so stylish.' And it's not any one class. It's everyday life. — Susanne Bier

I have this almost obsessive desire to whomever is close to me: I want to have a very intense, close, intimate relationship with them. — Susanne Bier

Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the bier. — Walter Savage Landor

Oh, ye've a temper,' said Archie consideringly. 'And ye had a rare old time losing it, and ye were like enough justified at that. But take a thought, too. Are ye to accuse Graham Malett in the law courts from the flat o' a bier-claith, or on two sticks like a wife wi' Arthretica? If ye're tae walk upright like the fine, testy gentleman ye are, ye'll need some nursing, I'd say. So I fear Guthrie and I had best bide. — Dorothy Dunnett

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. — William Shakespeare

I think possibly, as an artist, you're always treated with a certain respect but also with a certain sort of nervousness. — Susanne Bier

The foundations of our lives are far more fragile than we think. So we are severely shaken when life turns out to have a will of its own. — Susanne Bier

As a filmmaker, I always try not to concern myself with the outcome of things. I make the movie, and I do that as honestly and good as I can. I don't want to pollute my thoughts with what is going to happen with it afterwards, because I have to work inside-out. — Susanne Bier

Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.
Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put sullen black incontinent.
I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.
March sadly after. Grace my mournings here
In weeping after this untimely bier. — William Shakespeare

If there weren't so many professors, medicine would be much easier. — August Bier

I don't want actors to be writers. I think it's too much responsibility. — Susanne Bier

None of my movies are autobiographical. — Susanne Bier

(On vultures
... those false but democratic mourners at every casual bier ... — Beryl Markham

I've always been slightly hesitant about generalizing movies made by men and women being different in their nature; I think movies by each director are different. Having said that, I think that it's kind of disgraceful that there aren't more female directors. — Susanne Bier

A smart mother makes often a better diagnosis than a poor doctor. — August Bier

I don't know that there's more bullying or whether it's just more talked about. It seems to me that possibly that there's been a lot of bullying all the time, but at the moment, it's something that people are talking about. — Susanne Bier

They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men - some in their brushed Confederate uniforms - on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years. — William Faulkner

We always want to find good and bad guys, and I don't believe in that. — Susanne Bier

To multitudes of sufferers on beds of pain and languishing, Jesus has been the great physician to-day; in many a weeping circle around precious dust, He has been the Divine comforter, and the tears have almost ceased to flow as this Jesus has touched the bier. Dying lips have whispered His name, and the valley of the shadow has been illumined as with the glory from the celestial shores. — Abbott Eliot Kittredge

We're just helping out the Christians by bringing about the apocalypse. They can all go to heaven — Stephen Bier Jr.

I don't do a lot of rehearsal. I don't like rehearsals. I rehearse the day or morning. I spend one hour and a half with all the actors, and we go over the scenes, and we change it and change the dialogue, and we do a lot of things to it, but prior to shooting, I don't really rehearse. — Susanne Bier

There are certain things you cannot accept. There are certain things that human beings cannot tolerate. — Susanne Bier

I guess I strongly feel that we cannot pretend that the Third World is not part of our world. We cannot say 'OK, there's that problem over there, let's just close our eyes' - we cannot do that. — Susanne Bier

I did learn a lot from 'Things We Lost in the Fire,' but I've learned different things from different films. — Susanne Bier

And friends, dear friends,
when it shall be That this low breath is gone from me, And gone my bier ye come to weep, Let One, most loving of you all, Say, Not a tear must o'er her fall; He giveth His beloved sleep. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

John le Carre's 'The Night Manager' is a relentlessly exhilarating thriller with profound emotional depths. — Susanne Bier

I really don't like that modern notion of 'I don't need anyone.' I see a lot of young women feeling they have to be that way, they have to be hard, in a way. And what does that bring them? They're just going to be lonesome. They're going to be, at best, lonesome and capable, at worst, lonesome and hard. And is that what we want? No. — Susanne Bier

If there were Satan, I would gladly sell my soul to him to prevent Sting from making another record. — Stephen Bier Jr.

I think there's a misconception of my wanting to do dark stuff. — Susanne Bier

I give everything to my work, and I like complex roles, characters that aren't obvious. I've been very lucky so far, and I'm dreaming of working with directors like Jane Campion, Susanne Bier and the Dardennes. But the gods will decide. — Eva Green

I think most of my films all have a certain tone or intensity in them. They are tense, and you kind of anticipate some kind of catastrophe, but you're not quite sure. — Susanne Bier

I think it is kind of depressing how few female filmmakers there are. I think it is in general depressing how few women there are in ... important positions in society — Susanne Bier

I would say I'm basically interested in human beings, and I don't really care whether they're men or women. I think my comprehension is about the same for both. — Susanne Bier

I think the lack of automatically feeling, 'Yes, the future is going to be like the present' - that is very much a Jewish thing. — Susanne Bier

Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak, And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier, Our words are sobs, our cry or praise a tear: We are the smitten mortal, we the weak. We see a spirit on earth's loftiest peak Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear: See a great Tree of Life that never sere Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak; Such ending is not death: such living shows What wide illumination brightness sheds From one big heart, - to conquer man's old foes: The coward, and the tyrant, and the force Of all those weedy monsters raising heads When Song is muck from springs of turbid source. - G EORGE M EREDITH. — Robert Browning

In a way, our family is our modern identity. — Susanne Bier

I think the good thing about Dogme is that it forces you into an extreme sense of reality because there's no artificial light and no set design and all of those icings on the cake that you usually have on a movie. — Susanne Bier

The main thing as a director, you always want to have a bit of a worry about the material you're going to get yourself into. You want to be a bit scared of it so that you have that excitement of having to climb the mountain. — Susanne Bier

I don't feel that I'm strictly Danish; I don't feel that my sense of humor is strictly Danish or my human sensibility is strictly Danish. — Susanne Bier

Following directly behind the bier were the servants who would, in earlier times, have been slaughtered at the graveside, along with a warrior's horse. Musicians and torchbearers came next, with the rear taken up by the mimes- sinister, silent figures in wax masks modelled on dead members of the family. — Catharine Arnold

If I go home from a day of shooting, and I haven't at some point felt the magic, I'm really frustrated. — Susanne Bier

A successful artist of any kind has to work so hard that she is justified in refusing to lay down her sceptre until she is placed on the bier. — Edith Evans

I think that being Jewish has generated an extremely strong sense of the importance of family. If I look at my Scandinavian colleagues, they don't have that urgency about family. All my movies are about that. — Susanne Bier

I don't feel I have an issue with listening or understanding English in any sort of way. — Susanne Bier

There were 10 or 15 years where all the Scandinavian movies were gray and light brown. I got really bored with it. I really felt that movies had to have that life of vivid colors. — Susanne Bier

I never say of an operation that it is without danger. — August Bier

A lot of people who live in Denmark will understand Danish but not necessarily speak it. — Susanne Bier

Denmark is like a big family of people. — Susanne Bier

Susanne Bier's work I've always really enjoyed. She's just such a great filmmaker; she's very cool and very sexy - that always helps, too. — Pierce Brosnan

I think it's extremely difficult consistently being a decent human being. — Susanne Bier

Oftentimes, reality is much worse than what you can put in a movie. — Susanne Bier

Whole libraries can be filled with the papers written about cancer and its causes, but the contents of these papers fit on one little library visiting card. — August Bier

People don't necessarily do evil deeds because they want to; people happen to do something with horrible consequences even if they meant to be kind. — Susanne Bier

I'm extremely straightforward. And I can't do that sort of traditional girl thing of saying one thing that actually means something else. I never understood it, and I still don't understand it. — Susanne Bier

Are you not afraid of death?'
I am not in the least afraid! ... I would rather die than drink that bitter medicine.'
At that moment the door of the room flew open, and four rabbits as black as ink entered carrying on their shoulders a little bier.
What do you want with me?' cried Pinocchio, sitting up in bed in a great fright.
We are come to take you,' said the biggest rabbit.
To take me? ... But I am not yet dead! ... '
No, not yet: but you have only a few minutes to live, as you have refused the medicine that would have cured you of the fever.'
Oh, Fairy, Fairy!' the puppet then began to scream, 'give me the tumbler at once ... be quick, for pity's sake, for I will not die
no ... I will not die ... — Carlo Collodi

High in the Tower of Love, the last remaining tower of Tallith, he rests on a bier, not living, not dead. He doesn't age, or change, needs no sustenance. He sleeps. He waits — Melinda Salisbury

And thou art terrible
the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier;
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine. — Fitz-Greene Halleck

Three directors whose work directly influences mine are Paul Thomas Anderson, Darren Aronofsky and Susanne Bier (her Danish films). You'll notice that they all don't make feel good movies, same as me, and their films are always visually simple but beautiful (and I hope mine are!). — Chika Anadu

In reality most people aren't as perfect as they want to seem. — Susanne Bier

Any creative process is about being in a territory which isn't secure, isn't necessarily familiar, and isn't convenient in any sort of way. And that's the excitement of it. — Susanne Bier

At some stage in most people's lives, things turn upside down, and nothing is as you expected it to be. — Susanne Bier

I believe in rules. I believe in artistic limitations, and I always have. I've always thought that setting out a set of rules before you start, and then being completely consistent with them, is the only way to make a really good film. — Susanne Bier

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing. — Susanne Bier

My mother has had breast cancer twice. And my mother has always been this very positive human being: a glass-half-full type. Like, when she was in treatment and feeling really bad, she would always talk about some nurse that was particularly nice to her. — Susanne Bier

I generally edit quite heavily. In general, there aren't many scenes that are sitting where they sat in the script in the final form. — Susanne Bier

I am very close to my family, and there's something life-affirming about that. Even if you feel completely different from them and have totally different views on politics and ethics, you're still family and have that immediate acceptance. — Susanne Bier

I quite like some of the movies that have many characters in them. — Susanne Bier

A significant number of women who have been ill or had marital issues feel they have no value, and society is so keen on telling us that's the case. — Susanne Bier

Parents can shape a child, but a great teacher can, too. — Susanne Bier

Having done a Dogme film taught me the beauty of simplicity and austerity. — Susanne Bier

When I am dead, no pageant train shall waste their sorrows at my bier. Nor worthless pomp of homage vain stain it with hypocritic tear. — Edward Everett

For the Oscars, I had a speech in my hand, and I just knew if I opened the piece of paper, I was going to be unable to read it. So I just thought, 'I'm going to say, as coherently as I can, whatever I can.' — Susanne Bier

I hate when the sun is high and there are no shadows. If I could do super high-budget movies, I would only shoot when the sun starts to get low - but you can't just shoot for four hours every day. — Susanne Bier

I've had a very fortunate, very privileged life. I say it with all humility because it could change tomorrow. — Susanne Bier

Rome is one enormous mausoleum. There, the Past lies visibly stretched upon his bier. There is no today or tomorrow in Rome; it is perpetual yesterday. — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

If you look at children's stories in fairy tales, they're pretty brutal. — Susanne Bier

Mortality
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passes from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, the low and the high,
Shall molder to dust, and together shall lie.
Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye - 'tis the draught of a breath -
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? — William Knox

January gray is here, like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier, march with grief doth howl and rave, and April weeps
but, O ye hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Anders Thomas Jensen and I had talked about making a movie which addressed the cancer issue, and we didn't want to make it heavy-handed. We wanted to do something which had a lot of hope in it. And then for some reason we came up with a romantic comedy. — Susanne Bier

Tombs decked by the arts can scarcely represent death as a formidable enemy; we do not, indeed, like the ancients, carve sports and dances in the sarcophagus, but thought is diverted from the bier by works that tell of immortality, even from the altar of death. — Madame De Stael

You don't have to go very far away from Scandinavia to realize what an idyllic society it is. — Susanne Bier

Medical scientists are nice people, but you should not let them treat you. — August Bier

Women, nowhere in the world, have the kind of important position in society in the amount that they ought to have. — Susanne Bier

My favorite hobby is matchmaking. It's a lot easier to do it in movies then in real life because in real life, people don't do what I tell them to do. — Susanne Bier

June falls asleep upon her bier of flowers;
In vain are dewdrops sprinkled o'er her,
In vain would fond winds fan her back to life,
Her hours are numbered on the floral dial. — Lucy Larcom

Do not lift him from the bracken, Leave him lying where he fell- Better bier ye cannot fashion: None beseems him half so well As the bare and broken heather, And the hard and trampled sod, Whence his angry soul ascended To the judgment seat of God! — William Edmondstoune Aytoun

I'm a huge fan of Richard Curtis - there's real grief, real compassion in his films as well as cheekiness; it's a wonderful cocktail. — Susanne Bier

Medical theories are most of the time even more peculiar than the facts themselves. — August Bier

When I watch a movie myself, I want to forget that I'm watching a movie, and I want to be inside the movie. That's the kind of experience I want my audience to have. — Susanne Bier

If my daughter's going to go out in the winter with summer clothes, I'm gonna question it. And at some point, I assume, if the conversation goes on long enough, if I can convince her, she will put on some warm clothes. And I think that sort of exchange is pretty valid. — Susanne Bier

I've got this fear of becoming comfortable. — Susanne Bier

There are good and bad movies, and long ones, and pretentious ones, and fun ones, and it's kind of healthy not just being able to switch off after ten minutes, but have patience. — Susanne Bier

Bier, and I think it proper that I should try to clear the atmosphere. — David McCullough

You win an Oscar, and the movie that comes after that is always going to be compared. — Susanne Bier

I have a slight controversy with the Dogme brethren because I've been saying that rules are to be interpreted; not that I haven't followed the rules, because I don't see the point of submitting yourself to a set of rules if you don't follow them. But having said that, it is always a lot of interpretation. — Susanne Bier

For the first fourteen years for a rod they do while for the next as a pearl in the world they do shine. For the next trim beauty beginneth to swerve. For the next matrons or drudges they serve. For the next doth crave a staff for a stay. For the next a bier to fetch them away. — Thomas Tusser

Dogme is like leading a religious life, in that you are freeing yourself from making certain choices. It makes life easier. — Susanne Bier