When I was a little boy, I was reading Dante and I was saying to myself 'Bravo, Dante, Bravo.' It's so beautiful, the music, the sound, the meaning. I felt like calling him by phone, like a friend.
Roberto BenigniRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Storytelling aims to evoke beauty and poetry, regardless of whether the narrative is comedic or tragic.
Roberto Benigni emphasizes that the essence of storytelling lies in its ability to convey beauty and poetry, transcending the boundaries between comedy and tragedy. The emotional depths of a story, whether it elicits laughter or sorrow, can ultimately lead to a profound appreciation of beauty, highlighting the universal nature of human experience in art.
Themes
StorytellingBeautyPoetryComedyTragedy
In practice
Example use cases
During a creative writing workshop, I quoted Benigni to encourage participants to embrace both humor and sorrow in their narratives.
More from Roberto Benigni
All quotes βIn 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.
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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 BenigniRead
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 BenigniRead
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