For an artist, to be normal is a disaster

In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets.

My films are the celebration of reality, of life, of my friends, of actual daily life that passes and is gone tomorrow. We don't pay attention to it when it happens.

An adventurer can always return home; an exile cannot. So I decided that my home would be culture.

In Lithuania, I am known as a poet, and they don’t care about my cinema. In Europe they don’t know my poetry; in Europe, I am a filmmaker. But here, in the United States, I am only a maverick!

In a meadow full of flowers you cannot walk through and breathe those smells and see all those colors and remain angry. We have to support the beauty, the poetry of life.

The deeper I went into culture, the more confused I got. So I needed something more real. I said, "Okay, from now on, my country will be cinema."

The nature of the video camera really makes you focus on the present. Since I have always been a diarist filmmaker, not one who stages scenes with actors, it has always been about the present moment.

Seek the insignificant small but essential qualities, essential to life

I'm not an abstract artist; I leave that to others. To me, abstract art ended with Kazimir Malevich's 'Black Square.' To continue it is senseless.

We are the measure of all things. And the beauty of our creation, of our art is proportional to the beauty of ourselves of our souls.

Don’t let people who don’t care about you manipulate your mind feelings and emotions, or controls how you think about yourself. Never give that much power to someone else.

A decorator can make lots of money - assuming she wins the lottery.

The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it.

The idea that you can ask one question and it makes the point - well, that wasn't how psychology was done at the time.

... it is certain that the real function of art is to increase our self-consciousness

I'm the final clause in a periodic sentence, and that sentence begins a long time ago, in another language, and you to read it from the beginning to get to the end, which is my arrival.

When people suffer, their relationships usually suffer as well. Period. And we all suffer because, as the Buddha says, that's the nature of being human and wanting stuff we don't always get.

Basically, you're selling a world as an actor, right? I mean it's like any sales person: if you believe in your product, you know your product, you sell it a lot better.

To live in the past is to miss today's opportunities and tomorrow's blessings.

I think Oprah who is the height of aspiration and inspiration recognizes something in me that is germane.