Googly Moogly Quotes

"No Spiders or Vampires Allowed."

Quotes from
"Life Is Beautiful" (1997):

Giosué: [first line - narrating as an adult] This is a simple story...but not an easy one to tell.
* * *
Guido: Buon giorno, Principessa!
* * *
Guido: What kind of place is this? It's beautiful: Pigeons fly, women fall from the sky! I'm moving here!
* * *
Guido: You can't imagine how much I feel like making love to you. But I'll never tell anyone, especially not you. They'd have to torture me to make me say it.
Dora: Say what?
Guido: That I want to make love to you - not just once, but over and over again! But I'll never tell you that. I'd have to be crazy to tell you. I'd even make love to you now... right here for the rest of my life.
* * *
Guido: What are your political views?
Man: [to his two sons] Benito, Adolf! Sit Down!... Sorry Guido, what did you say?
* * *
Giosué: "No Jews or Dogs Allowed." Why do all the shops say, "No Jews Allowed"?
Guido: Oh, that. "Not Allowed" signs are the latest trend! The other day, I was in a shop with my friend the kangaroo, but their sign said, "No Kangaroos Allowed," and I said to my friend, "Well, what can I do? They don't allow kangaroos."
Giosué: Why doesn't our shop have a "Not Allowed" sign?
Guido: Well, tomorrow, we'll put one up. We won't let in anything we don't like. Why don't you like?
Giosué: Spiders.
Guido: Good. I don't like vampires. Tomorrow, we'll get sign: "No Spiders or Vampires Allowed."
* * *
Guido: [being shipped to a concentration camp] You've never ridden on a train, have you? They're fantastic! Everybody stands up, close together, and there are no seats!
Giosué: There aren't any seats?
Guido: Seats? On a train? It's obvious you've never ridden one before! No, everybody's packed in, standing up. Look at this line to get on! Hey, we've got tickets, save room for us!
* * *
Giosué: I didn't like the train.
Guido: [to his son] Me, neither. We'll take the bus back, okay?
Guido: [to the Nazis] Did you hear that? We're taking the bus back!
* * *
Guido: The prize is... the prize is...
Eliseo: A tank.
Guido: Yes! Yes, the prize is a tank.
Giosué: I already have one.
Guido: No, a real one.
Giosué: A real tank?
* * *
Giosué: [watching his uncle being sent to the gas chamber] Where is Uncle going?
Guido: Uh... oh, he's playing on a different team. Goodbye, Uncle!
Giosué: Goodbye, Uncle.
* * *
Bartolomeo: They are looking for someone who speaks German, to translate their instructions.
Guido: Me! I'll do it, I'll translate!
Bartolomeo: Do you speak German?
Guido: No.
* * *
Guido: [pretending to translate] The game starts now. You have to score one thousand points. If you do that, you take home a tank with a big gun. Each day we will announce the scores from that loudspeaker. The one who has the fewest points will have to wear a sign that says "Jackass" on his back. There are three ways to lose points. One, turning into a big crybaby. Two, telling us you want to see your mommy. Three, saying you're hungry and want something to eat.
* * *
Giosué: They turn us into buttons and soap.
Guido: Who told you that?
Giosué: An old man was crying. He said they turn us into buttons and soap. They burn us all up in ovens.
Guido: How ridiculous. They were just teasing you! There are wood ovens, but there are no people ovens. Putting people in ovens creates too much smoke.
* * *
Guido: [carrying his son through the camp] You are such a good boy. You sleep now. Dream sweet dreams. Maybe we are both dreaming. Maybe this is all a dream, and in the morning, Mommy will wake us up with milk and cookies. Then, after we eat, I will make love to her four or five times. If I can.


Roberto Benigni about cinema:

• When I first saw a Fellini movie, I came out of the movie theatre and decided to become a lawyer! I thought to myself, it's impossible to make something so beautiful!
  
• Fellini belongs to nature.
  
• For me, Fellini was like a watermelon. It is there. A watermelon cannot die.
  
• It's a real love story in an extreme situation, ... I was afraid of only one thing. I was afraid to offend the memory of survivors on Jewish people, which I respect so much.
  
• I am overjoyed and extremely grateful to receive this extraordinary honor, ... These awards fill my heart with happiness, knowing that people throughout Europe have been touched by our film.
  
• It's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation. (in "Newsweek")
  
• My duty is to try to reach beauty. Cinema is emotion. When you laugh you cry.
  
• Kubrick is like someone like Fellini, like Kafka, like someone who really dreamt for us and gave to us the key to understand something and the pleasure to tell the story.
  
• This is an homage to the master, because I love this movie, and, of course, making a movie -- a comedy about concentration camp, I watched this movie a lot of time.
  

Roberto Benigni about Benigni:

• My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity.
  
• My mother brought me magicians and witches, because I was very ugly, really revolting. So she thought somebody had put a spell on me - this is the truth - so she made me drink some horrible terrifying potions, for year.
  
• The first movie I saw - and I don't know if it influenced me - was Ben Hur. We watched it outside in a corn field, and it ran backwards, so the first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur backwards.
  
• I remember in the circus learning that the clown was the prince, the high prince. I always thought that the high prince was the lion or the magician, but the clown is the most important.
  
• In Italy, the country where fascism was born, we have a particular relation with the Holocaust, but as a turning point in history it belongs to everybody in the world. It is a part of humanity.
  

Roberto Benigni (born October 27, 1952, in Misericordia, Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy) is an Italian film and television actor and director. Benigni is best known for his tragi-comedy "Life Is Beautiful" ("La Vita e bella" 1997) about a man who tries to protect his son during his internment at a Nazi concentration camp, by telling him that the Holocaust is an elaborate game and he must adhere very carefully to the rules to win. Benigni's father had spent two years in a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen, and La Vita e bella is based in part on his father's experiences. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won 3 Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Music (Nicola Piovani) and Best Actor (Benigni directed himself). His Oscar for Best Actor marked the second time that an actor had directed himself in an Academy Award winning performance (the other one was Laurence Olivier for "Hamlet" in 1948).

Benigni also directed "Il piccolo diavolo" (with Walter Matthau, 1988), "Johnny Stecchino"(1991), "The Monster" ("Il Mostro" 1994) and "Pinocchio" (2002). Benigni's wife, Nicoletta Braschi, has starred with him in most of the films he directed.

Benigni has starred in two films by American Director Jim Jarmusch. In "Down By Law" (1986) he plays Bob, the innocent abroad, convicted for murder, whose irrepressible good humour and optimism help him escape and find love (also starring Braschi as his beloved.) In "Night on Earth" (1991) he plays a cabby in Rome, causing his passenger, a priest, great discomfort by confessing his revolting sexual experiences. He also starred in the first of Jarmusch's series of short films "Coffee and Cigarettes" (1986).

Benigni became famous in the 1970s for a shocking TV series called "Televacca". The series was suspended due to censorship. Benigni was censored again in the 1980s for calling the Pope John Paul II something impolite during an important live TV show. His famously mangled English is a put-on, apparently. Benigni is also a well appreciated improvisatory poet, and is appreciated for his recitations of Dante's "Divina Commedia" by memory.