A little part of myself will survive

Yesterday Ingmar Bergman died, at the age of 89. I remember as a boy finding a whole new world in his films: The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Virgin Spring, and others. Yesterday's New York Times quoted Bergman on his life's work:

I want to be one of the artists of the cathedral that rises on the plain. I want to occupy myself by carving out of stone the head of a dragon, an angel or a demon, or perhaps a saint; it doesn’t matter; I will find the same joy in any case. Whether I am a believer or an unbeliever, Christian or pagan, I work with all the world to build a cathedral because I am artist and artisan, and because I have learned to draw faces, limbs, and bodies out of stone. I will never worry about the judgment of posterity or of my contemporaries; my name is carved nowhere and will disappear with me. But a little part of myself will survive in the anonymous and triumphant totality. A dragon or a demon, or perhaps a saint, it doesn’t matter!

(Thanks to M. Allen Cunningham for the quotation.)