25 Quotes & Sayings By Alejandro Jodorowsky

Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in Tocopilla, Chiloe Island, Chile, in 1928. He is the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He is the founder of the Cinémathèque Française and Film-makers Workshop in Santa Monica.

For a true artist, difficulties become opportunities and clouds become...
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For a true artist, difficulties become opportunities and clouds become solid present. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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During these past years, not being able to speak with you, I dedicated myself to reviewing, within myself, the sacred books I know by heart. I had the idea I should summarize them in a single volume. Then, in a single chapter, then in a single page, and finally in a single sentence. This sentence is the greatest thing I can teach you. It seems simple, but if you understand it, you will never have to study again." The Rabbi recited it. And life, from that moment on, changed for Alejandro. "If God is not here, He is nowhere; this instant itself is perfection. . Alejandro Jodorowsky
This is true freedom: to be capable of leaving ourselves,...
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This is true freedom: to be capable of leaving ourselves, crossing the boundaries of our little world to open up the universe. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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Although really society should not change, it should mutate. And, little by little, it is mutating...... Society is like the body of a chicken: the chicken's foot is hard and insensitive while the eye is very alive. And there are beings who embody the cells of the eyes and others who embody the cells of the feet, of the wings, or of the anus. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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If you want to draw some advantage from your history, you must accept not only this miracle but also many others. In memory, everything can become miraculous. All you have to do is wish it, and freezing winter turns into spring, miserable rooms fill up with golden tapestries, murderers turn good, and children who cry out of loneliness receive caring teachers who are really the children themselves moved back from adulthood to their early years. Yes, my daughter, the past is not fixed and unalterable. With faith and will we can change it, not erasing its darkness but adding lights to it to make it more and more beautiful, the way a diamond is cut. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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You are engaging in madness. I feel obliged to accompany you. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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When the bullseye becomes as big as an elephant in your mind, you won’t be able to miss it. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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I am a victim. To be an artist is to be a victim, because if you don't do what you want to do you die. That is the reality. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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I have an ambition to live 300 years. I will not live 300 years. Maybe I will live one year more. But I have the ambition. Why you will not have ambition? Why? Have the greatest ambition possible. You want to be immortal? Fight to be immortal. Do it. You want to make the most fantastic art or movie? Try. If you fail, is not important. We need to try. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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Do not become attached to anything that can destroy you in the course of time. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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Awakening is not a thing. It is not a goal, not a concept. It is not something to be attained. It is a metamorphosis. If the caterpillar thinks about the butterfly it is to become, saying ‘And then I shall have wings and antennae, ’ there will never be a butterfly. The caterpillar must accept its own disappearance in its transformation. When the marvelous butterfly takes wing, nothing of the caterpillar remains. . Alejandro Jodorowsky
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If you are great, El Topo is a great picture. If you are limited, El Topo is limited. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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The mole is an animal that digs passages searching for the sun. Sometimes he reaches the surface. When he looks at the sun he goes blind. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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You live in the image you have of the world. Every one of us lives in a different world, with different space and different time. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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For me they are no different, reality and dreams. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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Failure doesn't exist. It's only a change of direction. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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Human society has dense borders - economic, religious and cultural - inculcated from an early age. We hate change. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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Life is beautiful, what do you think? In the morning I say, 'Ah, I am alive still! ' All my friends die already. I am alive. It is fantastic. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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I believe in mysticism, with an interior goal, and you are your own temple and your own priest. I don't believe anymore in religions, because you see today there are religious wars, prejudice, false morals, and the woman is despised. Religion is too old now; it's from another century, it's not for today. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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I live making comics. Comics is an industrial art but less suffering, because comics are for young people who are more adventurous. I do that. I live off comics, and then I write books, but when you want movies, you cannot make movies without money. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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When I was a young person I went to the university and I learned a rational language, to think with the left side of the brain. But in the right side of the brain you have intuition and imagination. Words are not the truth; they indicate the way to go, but you need to go alone, in silence. Symbols have a language that kills the words. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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I want to liberate my imagination and my mind with every kind of movie. That is what I wanted to do all my life. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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Surrealism was necessary - essential, even - in the 1920s to bridge the gap between rationalism and the subconscious. It started something important. But by the early '60s, it had become petit-bourgeois; it was too intellectual and romantic, and had ground to a halt. It had become respectable. Alejandro Jodorowsky
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I am an artist, you understand? For me, a picture is like poetry. When you make art, this is not coming from an intellectual place. It's coming from the deep side of your unconscious, your soul. Alejandro Jodorowsky