I don't film messages. I let the post office take care of those.

I left the ending ambiguous, because that is the way life is.

I don't think you can in any way export culture with guns or tanks.

If New York is the Big Apple, tonight Hollywood is the Big Nipple.

I accept all interpretations of my films. The only reality is before the camera. Each film I make is kind of a return to poetry for me, or at least an attempt to create a poem.

A dolly move is a moral commitment.

A monoculture is not only Hollywood, but Americans trying to export democracy.

As a loyal believer in the Auteur Theory I first felt editing was but the logical consequence of the way in which one shoots. But, what I learned is that it is actually another writing.

Film students should stay as far away from film schools and film teachers as possible. The only school for the cinema is the cinema.

I remember being young in the 1960s. We had a great sense of the future, a great big hope. This is what is missing in the youth today. This being able to dream and to change the world.

Sometimes you are in sync with the times, sometimes you are in advance, sometimes you are late.

If a story is w/out flaws or doubts, it is flattery or even brainwashing. You should read it as if drinking a glass of water. But be prepared - you would not remember its taste.

For happiness don't pursue satisfaction, but pursue heroism.

I'd just much rather see an ugly person take the trash out than see somebody really pretty taking the trash out.

The misanthrope, as an essentially solitary man, is not a man at all: he must be a beast or a god.

It would seem to me that I was committing a theft if I were to let one day go by without doing some work.

I'm relyin' on Almighty God, Allah, and whatever happens happens.

I always find what I want. But when I find it, I don't want it any more.

War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, Secretly armed against all death's endeavour; Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

Eventually writing became more interesting to me than acting.

Man's Place in Nature.