The 90 best phrases (and reflections) of Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar is a director originally from Spain, who has been recognized for his unconventional works and that show a reality with which many people can feel identified in the midst of the drama and the positive and negative changes of life.

• We recommend you read: "The 75 best sentences of Stanley Kubrick"

Best quotes and phrases of Pedro Almodóvar

Being one of the most acclaimed and award-winning Spanish directors, he leaves us a series of teachings and Unforgettable quotes from his works that we will meet below with the best phrases of Pedro Almodovar.

1. Being a film director in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan.

Talking about the great challenge of being a film director in Spain.

2. The flower of my secret is definitely more based on true emotions. I also wanted to do something more realistic, but not naturalistic or simple.

Choosing to be inspired by real life for his works.

3. I believe that the only possible prize is money. It is much more decorative than a statuette, because you can buy an Armani suit.

Money does not buy happiness, but it is certainly a great help.

4. Singing in a quilted dressing gown is an experience every film director must go through.

Small joys of life.

5. Fortunately, nature has endowed me with an irrational curiosity even for the most insignificant things. That saves me.

Curiosity can lead us to achieve the success we seek.

6. There are two things in cinema that have a different value depending on whether they are done by a man or a woman: frontal nudity and crying.

The cruel differences in the world of cinema.

7. There are no young and old; only young and sick.

Youth is a mental and emotional state.

8. I can't stand the artist whose main motivation is provocation.

Artists must not only be professional, but humble.

9. Suddenly an election is approaching and you don't know who to vote for.

Politics has become a total confusion.

10. Although I love my mother, I did not want to make an idealized portrait of her. I'm more fascinated by his flaws: they're more fun than his other qualities.

Our flaws make us human.

11. I was born in a bad time for Spain, but really good for the cinema.

The most challenging times are the ones that are best portrayed on film.

12. A friend does not judge you, he only understands your processes and sincerely encourages you to accept your mistake.

What a true friend does for you.

13. Fortunate is the man who has time to wait.

Your time is valuable, so you should also invest it in your well-being.

14. Falling must not take away the glory of having risen.

Mistakes do not make us fail, they are an opportunity to improve.

15. When I make a film the last thing I think about is the viewer, I have enough already, there isn't a free neuron to think about anything else.

It is about putting on screen your own vision of the world.

16. For me, the prize is to be nominated for the Oscars in categories of the important calls.

Being nominated for an Academy Award is a direct recognition of your talent.

17. I also wanted to express the strength of cinema to hide reality while being entertaining.

One of his goals with the cinema.

18. I don't want to imitate life in the cinema, I want to represent it.

Looking to be a representative of life.

19. But the fact of being nominated doesn't make me feel closer to making a film in English.

Showing your pride in Spanish cinema.

20. I don't know what you've been talking about all these days. But I do know what I haven't told you in all these years. (Broken Embraces)

We all have secrets to hide.

21. I have paid a price for the miracle that has befallen me.

We all have to sacrifice something to get something better.

22. I don't think one should feel obligated. But if you feel like you want to do it, you should.

We must be responsible in the face of the challenges that we have to meet.

23. I feel at an age where I need a certain serenity.

Over time, serenity becomes a goal to be met.

24. We are human beings and like all human beings we have an ideology, and the right to speak about it.

Our beliefs are important to us.

25. Young people, you don't know how to fight for things. You think that everything is pleasure. Well, no, you have to suffer, and a lot. (Women at the edge of a nervous attack)

Many young people believe that the rest of the people should solve their lives.

26. That will come if I find the right script or the right story, one that has to be shot in English. And I will do it as another film in Spanish because what motivates me is always the story.

On making a film in English.

27. In that representation, you use the colors that you feel, sometimes they are false colors. But it is always to show an emotion.

Talking about his process of projecting images in the cinema.

28. Cinema can fill the empty spaces of your life and your loneliness.

Cinema becomes part of the lives of directors.

29. It's unusual, it's historic, which makes me feel enormous emotion that I want to share with everyone.

Speaking of the feeling that came from being nominated for the Oscars.

30. Love is something that absorbs twenty-four hours, it prevents you from concentrating on other matters. That is what attracts me the most and what horrifies me the most. The law of Desire.

When love reaches every corner of your existence and does not leave you free.

31. By the time it's finished and (a film) is released, I don't think about anything else, it even makes me sleepy.

All directors obsess over their movies.

32. I want to leave my mark with deep sincerity, I want to cross barriers and be reminded of humanity.

His goal as director, leave a legacy that others can use as inspiration.

33. Children are like God, full of tenderness, peace and with the universal language of love.

Children are creatures of great innocence.

34. A true friend is in your fall before you hit the ground, always.

The way friends support each other.

35. If priests were allowed to develop their natural sexuality, I am sure that 90% of these cases would disappear, they would end up looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend and that deformed, monstrous and sick sexuality to which celibacy gives rise would not appear.

A critique of the celibacy that the church imposes on its clerics.

36. I know what I don't want to vote for, but what I want to vote for I don't see. That produces enormous impotence and politicians should be taken for granted.

When there is no good promise in the future of a country's politics, people are discouraged from going to vote.

37. I believe that the great provocateurs are unintentionally so.

There are extravagant people who can't help but stand out.

38. I don't judge what is right or wrong or what is real and not in the culture.

Culture is the representation of the nature of a nation. Be it good or bad.

39. Boy, I have two Oscars, two Golden Globes, I have all the awards in the world. So my vanity is hypersatisfied. I don't like to complain.

Recognizing all the achievements that he has acquired.

40. Curiosity is the only thing that keeps me afloat. Everything else sinks me. oh! And the vocation. I don't know if I would be able to live without her.

The two elements that keep Almodóvar's motivation intact.

41. I didn't care what time you arrived... I was waiting for you awake, until I heard your heels... (High Heels)

The anguish that some children also go through.

42. Desire is something irrational for which one always has to pay a high price.

Letting ourselves be carried away by an uncontrolled desire can lead us down a bad path.

43. I think that the awareness of passion makes you act very differently.

Doing things with passion keeps us on the alert to improve.

44. Yes, women are stronger than us. They face more directly the problems that affect them, and for that reason they are much more spectacular than talking.

Recognizing the effort of women in everyday life.

45. I don't want to be in the limelight or become a Jiminy Cricket.

His only goal is to continue making movies.

46. I am often asked: do you think you could have made the films you made in the 80s now? Well look, no.

Times change and with it the different stories that are made in the cinema.

47. Pain and shame are also a prison. (Bullfighter)

A prison that does not let us free if we do not overcome them.

48. I think that reality crept in more in that short, because it is a work that deals with isolation.

Talking about the short that is associated with the pandemic.

49. Because of your youth, it is up to you to be an asshole and go out drinking without thinking about your parents, uncles and grandparents, how to be more risky than anyone when it comes to talking about reality.

impulsiveness in youth.

50. I, who am anti-violence, who literally vomit in the face of violence, had no problem putting myself in that position.

Although we are anti-violence, that does not mean that we allow ourselves to be trampled by someone.

51. One is more authentic the more it resembles what she has dreamed of herself. (Everything about my mother)

When we do what we love, we live in a happier way.

52. The problem in Spain throughout the pandemic has been the youth who cannot bear to be at home and who go out to drink in the street, what we call here 'botellón'.

Talking about the political problem that haunts Spain.

53. Spain is the second country with the most disappeared after Cambodia, and that is a terrifying reality.

A terrible criminal reality that needs to be resolved.

54. I am a Jehovah's Witness and my religion forbids me to lie. (Women at the edge of a nervous attack)

There are those who completely depend on their religious beliefs for their lifestyle.

55. My God, I don't believe in you, but help me. (The flower of my secret)

A situation with which many of us can identify.

56. Because although it seems that cinema is the language par excellence to suggest, the language of dreams, of the irrational, not at all, cinema is very, very objective.

What cinema represents for Almodóvar.

57. I don't get stories of happy families.

Having your own style of telling stories.

58. As I tell you, I have been very lucky, and that includes working in the cinema, which means being in the elite of a free mentality.

Recognizing how lucky he has been to work on what he loves most.

59. Well, I don't know what's worse, showing your panties or your pussy... (Tie me up!)

An excellent question.

60. We made a fearful transition to democracy.

The mistake of Spanish politics.

61. Since then, the Spanish right has been behaving in a very inhumane way towards the victims and the families of the victims.

Criticizing the right-wing movement in his country.

62. From school until later, when I came to Madrid and started making movies, there were always people who were very hostile to me.

On our way we will always find unpleasant people.

63. I prefer to think that I have been very lucky with the people who have supported me.

Thank those people who accompany you on your way.

64. Love is the saddest thing in the world when it ends. (Talk to her)

The greatest misfortune is triggered by a broken heart.

65. Today's young people don't think about the war because they don't have ghosts from that time, nor ghosts from the Franco period.

The difference between today's young people in Spain and those who lived through the civil war.

66. I also had a group of faithful who would have defended me to the death, and they were an invaluable help.

The people who really love you are those who support you at any time.

67. At school I would say there was a very visible 50% hostility.

The bullying that has always been present in schools.

68. In the institutions there were naturally many Francoist elements and there was fear that what actually happened three months later would happen, when there was a military coup, in 1981.

Talking about what it was like to live at the time of Francisco Franco's dictatorship.

69. If all men were like you, even I would become a lesbian. (The law of Desire)

A terrible disappointment makes us make radical decisions.

70. How are they going to look at you weird for being gay? Well, it doesn't hit them. Although if I think about it, they looked at me strangely at the movies too.

Our preferences should not be a subject to be ashamed of.

71. There are things that in a novel you can ignore but that in the film you have to show.

Movies need to portray a cohesive story.

72. Your amnesia leaves me without a past. (The law of Desire)

Forgetting is a punishment.

73. I don't look at you, I admire you! (tie me up!)

Do you have someone you admire?

74. I understand the need to have fun, but it was the biggest source of infection we had.

Talking about the unconsciousness of some people who did not respect the guidelines of the pandemic.

75. Total pass of you, you bore me. (What have I done to deserve this)

Put aside those people who do not contribute something positive in your life.

76. If I had to get rough, I would get rougher than anyone. You had to prove that you had more balls than the other, there was no other choice.

A situation where he had to show bravery through violence.

77. Right now I'm shocked by everything we're seeing.

Shocked at how the world moves now.

78. Because you have no commitment to anything, and nothing to lose. And if you're a filmmaker, it's up to you to be very outrageous and do things that others haven't done.

The real commitment you have with the cinema.

79. I wanted us to live away from guilt. And despite my silence, I gave it to you like a virus. (Juliet)

When you are not in a good place, your partner can also enter that dark path.

80. I think that, in any case, if you feel the need to make a film, you should do it.

Do what you love to do.

81. When a cause or a manifesto needs to be supported, I am the first to sign it.

Committed to the changes.

82. My life has not been that of a victim.

Despite the bad times, we can find a light at the end of the tunnel.

83. The only thing I really have are my feelings and the kilos of silicone that weigh me down like crystals. (Everything about my mother)

Time teaches us to see the impact of things.

84. As a child, when we lived together, I couldn't fall asleep until I heard the sound of your heels, in the distance, disappearing down the hall after closing the door of my room... (High Heels)

Waiting for a child.

85. The generation that was born in this century does not have those ghosts, although it does have many other problems that arise from the times we live in.

About young people who live in peace unaware of what happened in the Franco era.

86. With my film, I would like the new generations to be aware that, although the past of the war it is very far from them, in broader terms, it is a recent past, because it is a past that has not been resolved.

A clear message that you want to leave for future generations.

87. From the boy who lived in Calzada and enjoyed the color cards when he hadn't even discovered the cinema, from that boy until now everything that has happened to me is a kind of miracle.

How your life has changed. Although he has not forgotten where he came from.

88. There are always things left undone, or done poorly. And my life has not been an exception, but I don't know if they can be fixed. And if they do, it's up to me to fix them. (Return)

If you want to fix something, you have to look at it from another perspective.

89. It is important to know that history, because it always implies a lesson that should not be repeated in cases as drastic as the Spanish one.

On the importance of knowing the past of a country.

90. Which is not to say that he has not had to pay a price, in all respects. But not for being me, but because life is like that.

There is always a price to pay for what we do and want.