Andrei Tarkovsky: Trending quotes (page 2)

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 241
Context: Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? Perhaps our capacity to create is evidence that we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God?

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 234
Context: Freedom is inseparable from conscience. And even if it is true that all the ideas developed by the social conciousness are the product of evolution, conscience at least has nothing to do with the historic process. Conscience, both as a sense and as a concept, is a priori immanent in man, and shakes the very foundations of the society that has emerged from our ill-conceived civilisation.

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 192
Context: Art must must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition — otherwise life becomes impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence.

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 38
Context: Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken the wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for his own sake. What purports to be art begins to looks like an eccentric occupation for suspect characters who maintain that any personalised action is of intrinsic value simply as a display of self-will. But in an artistic creation the personality does not assert itself it serves another, higher and communal idea. The artist is always the servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of the self can only be expressed in sacrifice. We are gradually forgetting about this, and at the same time, inevitably, losing all sense of human calling.

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 152

On being told that his film Stalker should be faster and more dynamic by officials at Goskino.
Sculpting in Time (1989)

Source: Journal 1970-1986

Letter to the central committee of the CPSU (Communist Party of Soviet Union) https://varjag2007su.livejournal.com/2591915.html?utm_source=fbsharing&utm_medium=social (20 October 1970).

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 50

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 66

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 239

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 39

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 189

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 176

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 114

Sculpting in Time (1986)

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 150

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 97

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 219