Relating a person to the whole world: that is the meaning of cinema. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Art would be useless if the world were perfect. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Art is born out of an ill–designed world. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. — Andrei Tarkovsky

I am convinced that any attempt to restore harmony in the world can only rest on the renewal of personal responsibility. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Where am I when I’m not in reality or in my imagination? — Andrei Tarkovsky

All that I wanted was to tempt into life things that wanted to come out of me. — Andrei Tarkovsky

I have always liked people who can’t adapt themselves to life pragmatically. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Never try to convey your idea to the audience–it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they’ll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it. — Andrei Tarkovsky

What is art? (…) Like a declaration of love: the consciousness of our dependence on each other. A confession. An unconscious act that none the less reflects the true meaning of life–love and sacrifice. — Andrei Tarkovsky

When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Of course life has no point. If it had, man would not be free. — Andrei Tarkovsky

An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty. — Andrei Tarkovsky

An artist who has no faith is like a painter who was born blind. — Andrei Tarkovsky

It is perfectly possible to be a professional director or a professional writer and not to be an artist: merely a sort of executor of other people’s ideas. — Andrei Tarkovsky

An artist needs knowledge and the power of observation only so that he can tell from what he is abstaining, and to be sure that his abstention will not appear artificial or false. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Becoming an artist does not merely mean learning something, acquiring professional techniques and methods. Indeed, as someone has said, in order to write well you have to forget the grammar. — Andrei Tarkovsky

All ART, OF COURSE, IS INTELLECTUAL, BUT FOR ME, All THE ARTS, AND CINEMA EVEN MORE SO, MUST ABOVE All BE EMOTIONAL AND ACT UPON THE HEART. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Above all, I feel that the sounds of this world are so beautiful in themselves that if only we could listen to them properly, cinema would have no need for music at all. — Andrei Tarkovsky

My aim is to place cinema among the other art forms. To put it on a par with music, poetry, prose, etc. — Andrei Tarkovsky

In CInEMA IT IS NECESSARY NOT TO EXPLAIn, BUT TO ACT UPON THE VIEWER’S FEELInGS, AND THE EMOTION WHICH IS AWOKEN IS WHAT PROVOKES THOUGHT. — Andrei Tarkovsky

A literary work can only be received through symbols, through concepts–for that is what words are; but cinema, like music, allows for utterly direct, emotional, sensuous perception of the work. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Why do I feel this alone? Basically, because I’ve always been alone. I’ve always been alone. And alone I’ll be. It’s about time I become aware of it and never forget it. — Andrei Tarkovsky

For many years I have been tormented by the certainty that the most extraordinary discoveries await us in the sphere of time . We know less about time than about anything else — Andrei Tarkovsky

Late this evening I looked at the sky and saw the stars. I felt as if it was the first time I had ever looked at them. I was stunned. The stars made an extraordinary impression on me — Andrei Tarkovsky

Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I’d say that film is the sculpting of time. — Andrei Tarkovsky

The film [Stalker] needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts. — Andrei Tarkovsky

History is not Time; nor is evolution. They are both consequences. Time is a state: the flame in which there lives the salamander of the human soul. — Andrei Tarkovsky