Stan Brakhage

“The camera is my eye, my mind, and my heart.”

“Light is the primary material of film.”

“By deliberately spitting on the lens or scratching the emulsion, I am making a comment... so that you are aware that you are looking at a film.”

“How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'green'?”

“Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception.”

“I have been trying to make a visual music.”

“There's a pursuit of consciousness that is shared by all artists.”

“I don't make films for an audience. I make them for myself.”

“The hand-held camera is a way of breathing.”

“I am not interested in constructing a work of art... I am interested in holding up a mirror to my own mind.”

“The very nature of perception is what I’m interested in.”

“Filmmaking is a way of seeing.”

“Closed-eye vision is the primary visual source for me.”

“My films are an extension of my nervous system.”

“I am one of the most hated filmmakers in the world, and I'm very proud of it.”

“I'm trying to make a cinema that is not a story, but an experience.”

“The interruptions of the camera are the only punctuation that I have.”

“A film is a series of mistakes in the process of becoming.”