One cannot start a new life, you can only continue the old one.

I look on my life as raw material for my novels: that's just the way I am, and it frees me from any inhibitions.

...I would like to live a little bit longer in this beautiful concentration camp.

I refuse to adapt or integrate myself.

Talking is not enough; words don't clarify anything. I'll have to hit upon something, but what?

There's just one revolution that I can take seriously, and that's a police revolution.

Of course, living is another way of killing oneself: its drawback is that it takes so horribly long.

I am sick of atrocities, though these are now the natural order of our world. And I would still like to act!

I tried to depict the human face of this history, I wanted to write a book that people would actually want to read.

Nonexistence. The society of the nonexistent. In the street yesterday a nonexistent person trod on my foot with his nonexistent foot.

Myslím, že na místa, kde se odvíjely rozhodující události našich životů, stojí za to občas zavítat, abychom zjistili: nemáme sami se sebou nic společného.

There is no victory without battles

I don't like baseball movies. I like movies about moral courage and people who are indomitable and courageous and right.

I dare make those comparisons, but we often said 'the making of' would be as interesting if not more interesting than the film.

An elected government making huge changes with the consent of its people, is being undermined by concentrated powers in unregulated markets-powers which go beyond those of any individual government.

I think video is very useful, but it's very useful when you want a certain reality.

You can't break what's broken already.

The things that are ours cannot be given away, or taken away, or lost. We break our hearts, all of us, trying to keep things that do not belong to us — and to which we have no right.

I always drastically changed my look for each role. It's gotten a little tedious in real life, also, because there's no hiding.

Why does God allow evil in the world? To thicken the plot.

It is hard to look the other way when a dictator is being so cruel and violent with his own people.