Jonas Mekas Quotes

The way to my heart is by being truthful and spontaneous.

I would never put my close friends or a real relationship on a show.

I'm most honest about writing when I'm talking to family or friends, not to newspapers.

A friend is someone with whom you dare to be yourself.

I use the language I use to my friends. They wouldn't believe me if I used some high-flown literary language. I want them to believe me.

I'm not a theatrics guy who does things for effect. Whatever comes out is what I feel. It just comes out.

I am not premeditated in what I am going to say. That means there will be times I regret saying certain things.

I've always been a really open person around my friends.

Oh, my God, I literally only have, like, one friend that I'm actually completely, like, myself with.

I kind of made the decision early on to be extremely open about everything and just pretend like all of these people watching were my close friends that I could tell stuff to and be honest with.

I don't have to prepare any speeches for love. It's something that I engage with on a consistent basis.

Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.

Honesty. And I just really think there's a fundamental friendship that needs to exist, whether it's a lover, whether it's a sister...there's just this connection both people need to be effortlessly themselves.

I need to be spontaneous sometimes. Sometimes I find that the little detail or nuance that you add to it that's based on what's happening at the time that's not very rehearsed often ends up feeling like the funniest thing.

Be a best friend. Tell the truth. And overuse "I love you"

What is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means?

Sincerity may not help us make friends, but it will help us keep them.

I met so many people after I got rich and famous, and I learned that you can't ultimately trust people unless they were your friends when you were broke.

If you know somebody very well, like your grandmother or your baby sister, you will know when they are real and when they are fake.

Honesty is the only way with anyone, when you'll be so close as to be living inside each other's skins.

If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends.

The more I try to impress people, the more I separate myself from them. Vulnerability attracts love.

I don't have close relationships with agents. They're friends, but they're not confidants.

Along with the good qualities, if someone isn't vulnerable I can't be around them to a certain extent. And I don't mean vulnerable to me or vulnerable to me in a sexual way. I just mean vulnerable, period.

What appealed to me was the intimacy of the medium, the fact that I was doing it from my home, and the fact that I wanted to talk. I was not there to plug things. I don't do a hell of a lot of research. I go on a sort of kindred-spirit bonding that preexists the interview, and just see what unfolds.