That's life. Life is the ultimate game, and its rules were made to be broken

Happiness is such a fragile thing, isn't it? So easily burst, like a bubble blown by a child, and always on the verge of being carried away.

Everyone needs to escape sometimes, and retreating into somebody else's fantasy isn't nearly as satisfying as slipping into your own.

There are no easy paths in this life. And when troubles arise, we must face them with the same dignity as we do success.

There was no instruction to be thankful that the Christians were special people, chosen people. There was no nationalistic, political or ethnic superiority to be thankful for.

Running toward danger is foolhardy. ... But so is closing your eyes to it. Many perils become less dangerous once you understand their potential hazards.

I always live in the present. I don’t know the future and no longer have the past. The former oppresses me as the possibility of everything, the latter as the reality of nothing.

Everyone takes pleasure in returning small obligations, many people acknowledge moderate ones; but there are only a scarce few who do not pay great ones with ingratitude.

No, a euro referendum will not be part of a government programme if we get the chance to form one.

I have the great privilege of being both witness and storyteller. Intimacy, trust and intuition guide my work.

A man seems never to know what anything means till he has lost it; and this I suppose is the reason why losses--vanishing away of things--are among the teachings of this world of shadows.

It proved to be pretty impossible to get funds for a feature film in Finland. It's still small, but the film industry was miniscule at that point in the early '80s.