Sometimes a piece of music in the score isn't effective. When a score is too well finished with too many elements, sometimes it's too much.

In horror movies today its lots of fast cut shot and lots of loud noises on the soundtrack. I tried to do the opposite. Playing with silence for instance.

My mother used to take my brother and me to get any books we wanted, but they were second hand books published in the '30s and '40s. I liked scary books.

What's really exciting for me is communicating to other people and not just going somewhere to make a movie. That's Hollywood to me and it would mean nothing.

My movies are not movies of answers but of questions.

My movies, in general, I have the impression that when they finish of course they're never originally what you had in mind.

I would love to stay alone when I'm creating.

I could feel the real interaction between directing and acting, when an actor or an actress really suggests very interesting things.

My first cut is always pretty similar to the final cut.

The purpose of education is to save young people from the paralyzing effects of wealth and poverty. (more or less verbatim quote)

Please... Don't make me a murderer.

The contact between beings is established only by mute presence, by apparent non-communication, by that mysterious and wordless exchange which resembles inward prayer.

Can you appreciate music without playing it? Yes, you can. You can appreciate baseball without playing it. Many people attend a football game merely for the crowd, the excitement, the color.

There is no post-9/11. Everything from now until the end of time is post-9/11.

I don't allow myself to doubt myself even for a moment.

If you're gonna let the character be the story, you better set a tone that allows the actors to do the best work they can do.

Writing seems like the only job where what you think and feel really matters.

It's going to be over soon, so I don't really have time to get busy.

Don’t waste your time trying to get into my head. There's nothing there.