Abbas Quotes

I've often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it's inside a frame.

Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, 'Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.' That's not valid for people who want to think and reflect.

What man-made machine will ever achieve the complete perfection of even the goose's wing?

Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.

A movie is about human beings, about humanity.

In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.

Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can't limit it to one particular culture.

Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can't believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I'm interested in.

My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that's my perception of life.

I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.

I simply want tomorrow to be better than today. I want Palestine to be independent and sovereign... Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

I have no advice for anyone on how to live.

I can certainly put myself in Israel's shoes. They are humans just like we are. They want peace and security inside their borders.

We are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.

We cannot build foundations of a state without rule of law.

Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.

We cannot build a viable state with a country that is disintegrating into small pieces.

I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.

The little jihad is over, and now we have the bigger jihad - the bigger battle is achieving security and economic growth

We always have hoped that American diplomacy deploys itself in dialogue and persuasion rather than by ultimatums. That is the path we want in international relations.

In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.

If you run from a leaking roof you'll end up with a flood.

It's true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.

I never really learned photography.

The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.

In my mind, there isn't as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one.

We want the Israelis to leave. They want to leave - so let us let them leave.

I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.

I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.

Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end - I never do.

From here [the Gaza withdrawal], our people begin the march towards establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital

I do believe in [Robert] Bresson's method of creation through omission, not through addition.

A work of art doesn't exist outside the perception of the audience.

We have lost a very important religious figure who dedicated his life to peace and justice for all. [on the death of Pope John Paul II

I was mentioning with the digital camera, maybe this new fashion of filmmaking gives a closer look of what life may be like. But it's still nothing but a copy.

I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.

It's not so much a question of whether we've shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.

Anything I've not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.

No state on earth can afford to allow several authorities to co-exist next to one another.

As soon as people enter a theater they must become moron consumers who must be fed information.

The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.

In my opinion the man looks at the relationship in a more bitter fashion and the woman still holds great hopes.

I wasn't searching for a common denominator - I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.

I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.

I believe there's only good cinema and bad cinema.

There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he's so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality.

My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.

Close-Up is a very particular film in my oeuvre. It's a film that was made in a very particular way; mainly because I didn't really have the time to think about how to go about making the film.