"We know that under the image revealed there is another which is truer to reality and under this image still another and yet again still another under this last one, right down to the true image of that reality, absolute, mysterious, which no one will ever see or perhaps right down to the decomposition of any image, of any reality."

Michelangelo Antonioni
(29/09/1912 – 30/07/2007) 

"But I think that films should be made not for the audience or to make money or to attain popularity. In my opinion, films should be made to be as good as they can be. And this, it seems to me, is the best way to work and be sincere."

Michelangelo Antonioni
(29/09/1912 – 30/07/2007) 

"I don't know, I think I'd like to tell them only this, to know how to find themselves more often alone - to enjoy being alone with themselves more frequently. I think the tragedy of today's youth is that they try to unite on the basis some noisy events, a couple even violent, and this desire to unite in order not not to be alone is an unpleasant condition, from my point of view. I think a person needs to learn from childhood to find himself alone. It means to not be bored when you're by yourself, because a person who finds himself bored when he is alone, it seems to me, is a person in danger."

"The immense sadness of films without woman. I hate war films, except for the moment when the soldier takes out of his pocket the photo of a woman."

"The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed."

"I'm convinced we all are voyeurs. It's part of the detective thing. We want to know secrets and we want to know what goes on behind those windows. And not in a way that we would use to hurt anyone. There's an entertainment value to it, but at the same time we want to know: What do humans do? Do they do the same things as I do? It's a gaining of some sort of knowledge, I think."


"(...) I think people are fascinated by that, by being able to see into a world they couldn't visit. That's the fantastic thing about cinema, everybody can be a voyeur. Voyeurism is a bit like watching television - go one step further and you want to start looking in on things that are really happening."

"To be silent; to be alone. All the being and doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others. Beneath it all is dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by."

"Perhaps I seek certain utopian things, space for human honour and respect, landscapes not yet offended, planets that do not exist yet, dreamed landscapes. Very few people seek these images today."

"(...) 'Um quarto está ceifando, e esse sou eu.'
Vem isto tudo, que vai dito como vai sentido, a propósito do grande cansaço, aparentemente sem causa, que desceu hoje súbito sobre mim. Estou não só cansado, mas amargurado, e a amargura é incógnita também. Estou, de angustiado, à beira de lágrimas — não de lágrimas que se choram, mas que se reprimem, lágrimas de uma doença da alma, que não de uma dor sensível.
Tanto tenho vivido sem ter vivido! Tanto tenho pensado sem ter pensado! Pesam sobre mim mundos de violências paradas, de aventuras tidas sem movimento. Estou farto do que nunca tive nem terei, tediento de deuses por existir. Trago comigo as feridas de todas as batalhas que evitei. Meu corpo muscular está moído do esforço que nem pensei em fazer.
Baço, mudo, nulo… O céu ao alto é de um verão morto, imperfeito. Olho-o como se ele ali não estivesse. Durmo o que penso, estou deitado andando, sofro sem sentir. A minha grande nostalgia é de nada, é nada, como o céu alto que não vejo, e que estou fitando impessoalmente."