Quotes from Alejandro Jodorowsky

I always think that art is a form of sacrifice.

I like Hollywood movies. I like them like I like to eat scrambled eggs; I like them for fun.

I was alone as a child. I lived in fairytales, adventures, Shakespeare. They are the friends, my books.

People say I am mad. I am not mad. I am trying to heal my soul.

Normality is to be different. Every person is a different person. And one day you need to be aware of your difference. Aware that you are not the same as the others. That is to be normal.

I hated Peter O'Toole. I wanted to kill that guy! When they said he was dead, I was happy. People said, 'Poor Peter O'Toole.' I was happy!

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.

In Chile, they have no movies. They have awful popular movies.

We have to be very conscious of the fact that beneath every illness is a prohibition. A prohibition that comes from a superstition.

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.

The end of the surrealism movement was so political, so artistically pure.

Surrealism - in particular with Salvador Dali - was all about ego. It was all about extreme individualism.

For me, surrealism is in my blood; it's not an effort.

A man doesn't cry. In my life, I've never cried. I cannot do it. I am a man. How will I cry?

Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles.

Let the inner god that is in each one of us speak. The temple is your body, and the priest is your heart: it is from here that every awareness must begin.

The planet is ill, everyone knows that. But I need to be optimistic, otherwise I would just be adding to the negativity. So every night I come on Madrid TV and read a piece of good news.

When you put a great amount of energy and hope in a big project, you can be destroyed if you don't do it. But myself, I say: "To fail is only to see the way to fail."

One day, someone showed me a glass of water that was half full. And he said, "Is it half full or half empty?" So I drank the water. No more problem.

Tal vez si prohibieran la literatura como la cocaína, la gente por puro morbo, buscaría meterse un par de líneas.

I want to show the world that it is possible. It's possible to remember your self. To open your mind. To open your heart. To open your creativity. To live with less, but to live well.

No cuentes el tiempo sino tus transformaciones

I realized once again that what I believed myself to be was an arbitrary deformation, a rational mask floating in the infinite unexplored internal shadows. Later, I understood that diseases do not actually sicken us; they sicken what we believe ourselves to be. Health is achieved by overcoming prohibitions, quitting paths that are not right for us, ceasing to pursue imposed ideals, and becoming ourselves: the impersonal consciousness that does not define itself.

el ave del espiritu debe liberarse de la jaula racional