Bengt Ekerot Quotes - Best Lines & Interviews

Memorable Quotes from Bengt Ekerot

6 quotes

The Seventh Seal

Seeking an Encounter with the Devil

Block They say you've had commerce with the devil.

Witch Why do you ask?

Block Not out of curiosity, but for very personal reasons. I, too, want to meet him.

Witch Why?

Block I want to ask him about God. He must know, he if anyone.

Witch You can see him any time you want.

Block How?

Witch You must do as I say. Look into my eyes.

Witch Well, what do you see? Do you see him?

Block I see a stiff terror in your eyes. Nothing else.

Witch No one? Nothing? No one?

Block No.

Witch Is he not standing behind your back either?

Block No. There is nothing there.

Witch But he is with me everywhere. If I stretch out my hand, I feel him. He is with me even now. The fire won't hurt me.

Block Has he said so?

Witch I know it.

Block Has he said so?!

Witch I know it! I know it! You must see him somewhere, you must! The priests had no difficulty seeing him, nor the soldiers either. They are so afraid of him that they dare not even touch me.

Block Why have you broken her hands?

Soldier It is not us.

Block Who?

Soldier Ask the monk there.

Block What have you done to the girl?

Death Will you never stop asking questions?

Block No. I will never stop.

Death But you get no answer.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

The Seventh Seal

A Conversation on Death and Knowledge

Death When next we meet, the hour will strike for you and your friends.

Block And you will reveal your secrets?

Death I have no secrets.

Block So you know nothing?

Death I am unknowing.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

The Seventh Seal

Confrontation with Death and the Unknown

Narrator And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour... And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

Block Who are you?

Death I am Death.

Block Have you come for me?

Death I have walked at your side for a long time now.

Block That I know.

Death Are you prepared?

Block My body is afraid, but I am not.

Block Wait a moment.

Death You all say that. But I give no respite.

Block You play chess, do you not?

Death How do you know that?

Block I've seen it in paintings, heard it in the songs.

Death I really am a rather skilful chess player.

Block Even so, you can't be more skilful than me.

Death Why do you want to play chess with me?

Block That is my business.

Death You are right about that.

Block My condition is that I may live as long as I resist you. If I checkmate you, you set me free.

Block Black for you!

Death It becomes me well.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

The Seventh Seal

Confronting Emptiness and the Desire for Death

Block I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is empty, and the emptiness a mirror facing me. I see myself and am filled with loathing and horror. My indifference to men has shut me out from their company. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner of my dreams and fantasies.

Priest Yet you do not want to die.

Block Yes, I do.

Priest/Death What are you waiting for?

Block I want knowledge.

Priest/Death You want guarantees.

Block Call it what you will.

Block Is it so awfully unthinkable to conceive of God with one's senses? Why should He conceal Himself in a fog of half-spoken promises and unseen miracles? How are we to believe the believers when we don't believe ourselves? What will become of us who want to believe but cannot? And what of those who neither will nor can believe? Why can I not kill God within me? Why does He go on living within me in a painful, humiliating way, though I curse Him and want to tear Him out of my heart? Why does He remain a treacherous reality of which I cannot rid myself? Do you hear me?

Priest/Death I hear you.

Block I want knowledge. Not belief. Not supposition. But knowledge. I want God to reach out to me, unveil His face, speak to me.

Priest/Death But He is silent.

Block I cry to Him in the darkness, but sometimes it is as if there is no one there.

Priest/Death Perhaps there is no one there.

Block Then life is a senseless horror. No man can live with Death before his eyes and the knowledge that all is nothing.

Priest/Death Most people reflect neither upon Death nor nothingness.

Block Yet they must one day stand at the last shore of life and look into the Darkness.

Priest/Death Yes, that day.

Block I see what you mean. We must make an idol of our fear, and that idol we shall call God.

[laughs bitterly]

Priest/Death You are uneasy.

Block Death visited me this morning. We are playing chess. This respite enables me to perform a vital errand.

Priest/Death What errand?

Block My whole life has been coming and going and talking without point or consequence. It has been nothing. I say it without bitterness or self-reproach, for I know that almost all men's lives are made up just like that. But I want to use my respite for one meaningful deed.

Priest/Death Ah. So this is why you play chess with Death.

Block He is a dangerous and skillful tactician, but I have not yet lost one piece.

[smiling]

Priest/Death How will you outwit Death?

Block I am playing a a combination of bishop and knight that he has not yet detected. On my next move, I'll shatter his flank.

[''smiling'']

Death I shall remember that.

Block You are a traitor and you have tricked me! But we shall meet again, and I'll find a way out.

Death We shall meet at the inn and continue our game.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

The Seventh Seal

Confrontation Between Life and Mortality