I think my films are always quite self-reflexive and always question 'why am I doing this, is this the right way to do it, what is cinema for, does it have a purpose?

I've always been fascinated by maps and cartography. A map tells you where you've been, where you are, and where you're going -- in a sense it's three tenses in one.

I have always had severe problems with Austrians. ... Musical, churchy, uptight... nice legs... hypocritical... authoritarian... always insist their dustbins are very clean.

I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself.

I really, sincerely believe that one should trust the work, and not the author.

You can play lacrosse all over the world provided you know where the goalposts are.

I wanted to make a cinema of ideas, not plots, and to use the same aesthetics as painting, which has always paid great attention to formal devices of structure, composition and framing.

Works of art are never finished, just stopped.

Every historian has a vested interest. "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" was not about the Roman but the British empire. What price the truth?

I always think that art is one of the most wonderful exciting curious ways to learn. I have no worries or apologies about art being used as a teaching medium.

Only cinema narrows its concern down to its content, that is to its story. It should, instead, concern itself with its form, its structure.

It's a racket. Those stock market guys are crooked.

You've got Corey Feldman doing his thing, and the problem is, they're trying to be pop stars. You can't compare Salty to any of the other actors out there playing music

The eternal struggle in the law between constancy and change is largely a struggle between history and reason, between past reason and present needs.

When you understand your obligations to God then you can understand your obligations to society.

However strong or beautiful this body may be, its culmination is in those three pounds of ashes. And still people are so attached to it. Glory be to God.

If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.

Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end.

We have to be careful not to elevate our preferences to moral standards and judge others by them. We only do so to feel superior.

You stayed,” he murmured... Her softly whispered answer sifted into his hair where her lips rested against the top of his head. “You didn’t let go.

Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.