Life is full of a thousand red herrings, and it takes the history of a civilisation to work out which are the red herrings and which aren't.

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.

Only as high as I reach can I growOnly as far as I seek can I goOnly as deep as I look can I seeOnly as much as I dream can I be

Don't be ridiculous. Brussels sprouts are awful. Jail is just jail.

While it is best to believe in oneself, a little more from others can be a great blessing, a thing to be thankful for.

Don't listen to their words, fix your attention on their deeds.

China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.

I decided I was sick of trying to figure out what everybody else wanted, and I should just decide what I want, and be honest, and not spend all my time guessing.

Conceived in anger, addicted to hate, the mutant child of a twisted state.

dream is the dreamer's own psychical act.

Age gives you a great sense of proportion. You can be very hard on yourself when you're younger but now I just think 'well everybody's absolutely mad and I'm doing quite well'.

But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.