I've always wondered why there isn't a great French novel about the German occupation. The nouveau roman authors weren't interested in telling that sort of thing.

I felt the need to tell stories to understand myself.

What better model of a synthesis than a nocturnal dream? Dreams simplify, don't they?

My stories are very somber, so I think I need the comic ingredient. Besides, life has so much humor.

I can work in films as long as the story doesn't have a realistic nature. If I'm working with an allegory, a fantasy, it can be developed in synthetic terms.

I think cinema is closer to allegories than to reality. It's closer to our dreams.

I am only interested in bad taste if I can enjoy a gruesome tango or watch a movie that makes me cry.

If it's great stuff, the people who consume it are nourished. It's a positive force.

Your reality, isn’t restricted by this cell we live in. If you read something, if you study something, you transcend any cell you’re inside of

If the novelist shares his or her problems with the characters, he or she is able to study his personal unconscious.

Teaching is a good distraction, and I am in contact with young people, which is very gratifying.

A man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself.

Friendships aren't perfect and yet they are very precious. For me not expecting perfection all in one place was a great release.

Facts are important to me, not emotions. I would caution against speculation.

A playwright... is... the litmus paper of the arts. He's got to be, because if he isn't working on the same wave length as the audience, no one would know what in hell he was talking about.

The hidden child wants to be able to participate and to co-create in art, rather than being simply an admiring viewer.

What most people want, I guess? I want the individual to know that if we unite, we are not powerless.

Trade unionism is not socialism. It is the capitalism of the proletariat.

The expectation of my life was that I might be able to work for some good white folks. Now I got some good white folks working for me.

Every time I watch you open those beautiful eyes, I gaze with awe just thinking of how blessed I am to spend the rest of my life with you.

What a deformed thief this fashion is.