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. – Roberto Benigni
To be in front of an audience and pretending, and to lie, this is the principle of acting. – Roberto Benigni
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. – Roberto Benigni
I do not think the American peoples are idiots. They are a very playful and sensitive people! I know them! – Roberto Benigni
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. – Roberto Benigni
I could have made a small film and kept all the money from ‘Life is Beautiful’. Instead, I spent more money than I had on ‘Pinocchio’, a very risky film. – Roberto Benigni
Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn’t allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown – very much. – Roberto Benigni
I grew up in Tuscany in a very poor family. 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. – Roberto Benigni
When we talk to somebody and we want to be nice or polite or show our more beautiful side, we try to use the best words that we know. This is what poets are doing. They are cleaning the words, they are inventing the sentiments, they are giving us a way to communicate. – Roberto Benigni
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! – Roberto Benigni
I would like to thank my parents in Vergaio, a little village in Italy. They gave me the biggest gift: poverty. – Roberto Benigni
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. – Roberto Benigni
Sometimes poetry, it is incomprehensible. But we need incomprehensible stuff! It is very healthy to talk about incomprehensible things! It is very healthy! We need it! – Roberto Benigni
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
My previous movie before ‘Life Is Beautiful’ was the same; they didn’t release it so much in United States. – Roberto Benigni
I’m a storyteller: the crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry; it doesn’t matter if that is comedy or tragedy. They’re the same if you reach the beauty. – Roberto Benigni
The most important thing is to continue to be yourself. The day after the Oscars, you have to get on with your life. To be honest and true to yourself. – Roberto Benigni
The exquisite truth is to believe in something that maybe you know is a fiction, but you believe in it willingly. – Roberto Benigni
