Bunuel Quotes & Sayings

Luis Bunuel made great movies. — Giancarlo Esposito

I'm still an atheist, thank God. — Luis Bunuel

Fellini and Bunuel changed my life for me, they are my favourites. If it is true that movies are dreams, both of them, Fellini and Bunuel were shooting in a dream way. — Roberto Benigni

I can't help feeling that there is no beauty without hope, struggle, and conquest. — Luis Bunuel

I am an atheist, thanks be to God. — Luis Bunuel

A paranoiac like a poet, is born, not made. — Luis Bunuel

I think films are perishable, because they depend too much on technology, which advances too quickly and the films become old-fashioned, antiques. What I hope for is that technology advances to the point that films in the future will depend on a little pill which you take; then you sit in the dark, and from your eyes you project the film you want to see on a blank wall. — Luis Bunuel

God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed. — Luis Bunuel

Retrospectively, I would agree with Luis Bunuel that sex without sin is like an egg without salt. — Carlos Fuentes

Refuse any image that could have a rational meaning or any memory or culture — Luis Bunuel

Fellini, Kurosawa, and Bunuel move in the same field as Tarkovsky. Antonioni was on his way, but expired, suffocated by his own tediousness. — Ingmar Bergman

If the devil were to offer me a resurgence of what is commonly called virility, I'd decline. 'Just keep my liver and lungs in good working order,' I'd reply, 'so I can go on drinking and smoking!' — Luis Bunuel

Repeat, over and over again, in case anyone forgets it or believes the contrary, that we do not live in the best of all possible worlds. — Luis Bunuel

I say to hell with the work you have to do to earn a living! That kind of work does us no honor; all it does is fill up the bellies of the pigs who exploit us. But the work you do because you like to do it, because you've heard the call, you've got a vocation - that's ennobling! We should all be able to work like that. Look at me, Saturno - I don't work. And I don't care if they hang me, I won't work! Yet I'm alive! I may live badly, but at least I don't have to work to do it! — Luis Bunuel

Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I'd love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers. — Luis Bunuel

A life without memory is no life at all — Luis Bunuel

The bar ... is an exercise in solitude. Above all else, it must be quiet, dark, very comfortable - and, contrary to modern mores, no music of any kind, no matter how faint. In sum, there should be no more than a dozen tables, and a client that doesn't like to talk. — Luis Bunuel

Nothing would disgust me more, morally, than receiving an Oscar, — Luis Bunuel

The Cinema seems to have been invented to express the life of the subconscious, the roots of which penetrate poetry so deeply — Luis Bunuel

I can only wait for the final amnesia, the one that can erase an entire life. — Luis Bunuel

Tobacco and alcohol, delicious fathers of abiding friendships and fertile reveries. — Luis Bunuel

I would give my life for a man who is looking for the truth. But I would gladly kill a man who thinks that he has found the truth. — Luis Bunuel

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all ... Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing. — Luis Bunuel

If alcohol is queen, then tobacco is her consort. It's a fond companion for all occasions, a loyal friend through fair weather and foul. — Luis Bunuel

Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether. — Luis Bunuel

One of the greatest tragedies in my life is my deafness, for it's been over twenty years now since I've been able to hear notes. When I listen to music it's as if the letters in a text were changing places with one another, rendering the words unintelligible and muddying the lines. I'd consider my old age redeemed if my hearing were to come back, for music would be the gentlest opiate, calming my fears as I move toward death. In any case, I suppose the only chance I have for that kind of miracle involves nothing short of a visit to Lourdes. — Luis Bunuel

What I want to do is make films that astonish people, that astound people, and I hope you want to do that too. It's easy to make money. It's easy to make films like everybody else. But to make films that explode like grenades in people's heads and leave shrapnel for the rest of their lives is a very important thing. That's what the great filmmakers did for me. I've got images from Fellini, from Bergman, from Kurowsawa, from Bunuel, all stuck in my brain. — Terry Gilliam

I like the absurd and the surreal: the Coen brothers, Bunuel, Kubrick. — Kevin McCloud

My favorite favorites are people like Bunuel, Fellini and Charlie Chaplin. — Alex Winter

In any society, the artist has a responsibility. His effectiveness is certainly limited and a painter or writer cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of non-conformity alive. Thanks to them the powerful can never affirm that everyone agrees with their acts. That small difference is important. — Luis Bunuel

What am I to God? Nothing, a murky shadow. My passage on this earth is too rapid to leave any traces; it counts for nothing in space or in time. God really doesn't pay any attention to us, so even if he exists, it's as if he didn't. My form of atheism, however, leads inevitably to an acceptance of the inexplicable. Mystery is inseparable from chance, and our whole universe is a mystery. Since I reject the idea of a divine watchmaker (a notion even more mysterious than the mystery it supposedly explains), then I must consent to live in a kind of shadowy confusion. And insofar as no explication, even the simplest, works for everyone, I've chosen my mystery. At least it keeps my moral freedom intact. — Luis Bunuel

As inexplicable as the accidents that set it off, our imagination is a crucial privilege. I've tried my whole life simply to accept the images that present themselves to me without trying to analyze them. I remember when we were shooting That Obscure Object of Desire in Seville and I suddenly found myself telling Fernando Rey, at the end of a scene, to pick up a big sack filled with tools lying on a bench, sling it over his shoulder, and walk away. The action was completely irrational, yet it seemed absolutely right to me. Still, I was worried about it, so I shot two versions of the scene: one with the sack, one without. But during the rushes the following day, the whole crew agreed that the scene was much better with the sack. Why? I can't explain it, and I don't enjoy rummaging around in the cliches of psychoanalysis. — Luis Bunuel

Mystery is the basic element of all works of art. — Luis Bunuel

Even today, I've no idea what the truth is, or what I did with it. — Luis Bunuel

I also remember being struck by de Sade's will, in which he asked that his ashes be scattered to the four corners of the earth in the hope that humankind would forget both his writings and his name. I'd like to be able to make that demand; commemorative ceremonies are not only false but dangerous, as are all statues of famous men. Long live forgetfulness, I've always said - the only dignity I see is in oblivion. — Luis Bunuel

Mystery is the essential element of every work of art. — Luis Bunuel

If you were to ask me if I'd ever had the bad luck to miss my daily cocktail, I'd have to say that I doubt it; where certain things are concerned, I plan ahead. — Luis Bunuel

Today's culture is unfortunately inseparable from economic and military power. A ruling nation can impose its culture and give a worldwide fame to a second-rate writer like (Ernest Hemingway). (John Steinbeck) is important due to American guns. Had (John Dos Passos) and (William Faulkner) been born in Paraguay or in Turkey, who'd read them? — Luis Bunuel

A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive. — Luis Bunuel

The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.
— Luis Bunuel

Thank God, I am still an atheist. — Luis Bunuel

I find it [science] analytical, pretentious and superficial-largely because it does not address itself to dreams, chance, laughter, feelings, or paradox-in other words,-all the things I love the most. — Luis Bunuel

I think today there are too many directors taking themselves seriously; the only one capable of saying anything really new and interesting is Luis Bunuel. He's a very great director. — Luchino Visconti

Don't ask me my opinions on art, because I don't have any. Aesthetic concerns have played a relatively minor role in my life, and I have to smile when a critic talks, for example, of my "palette". I find it impossible to spend hours in galleries analyzing and gesticulating. — Luis Bunuel

Like the majority of deaf people, I don't like blind people much. — Luis Bunuel

Bound, elbow to elbow, darkness and night entered the dwelling. — Luis Bunuel

Sometimes, watching a movie is a bit like being raped. — Luis Bunuel

Age is something that doesn't matter unless you're a cheese — Luis Bunuel

All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence. — Luis Bunuel